Automatic Guided Vehicles

1. Robot of Meal Delivery

This meal delivery robot was one of my impressive jobs in Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). I proposed, planned, and implemented this project about the meal delivery robot in 2010 during the project run-down. The major components of the meal delivery robot are a sensing module, a MCU board, and an ARM board. I designed the sensing module which is composed of a RFID reader, 5 magnetic sensors, circuits of signal amplifications, and MCU to calibrate the 5 magnetic sensors. The sensing module transmits the status of the five magnetic sensors and the RFID tag information once the RFID reader detects correct tags. The robot traces a magnetic tape attached on the floor and knows its current position with the sensing module. The MCU board, one of the major components of the meal delivery robot, collects magnetic and tag data generated by the sensing module, controls the robot to follow a route paved with the magnetic tapes, and reaches its destination. The ARM board, the other one of the major components, receives commands from a computer with a program through WiFi. This robot is cost efficient to convey meals in restaurants.   

2. Industrial Automated Guided Vehicles 

The video shows an automatic guide vehicle (AGV) created in my ITRI department. AGV traces routes paved with the magnetic tapes and finds its current position by sensing RFID tags or patterns of magnetic tapes. AGV is composed of a control board with three MCUs, an electric circuit to control direct current (DC) motor drivers, and the same sensing module as the one developed in the project of the meal delivery robot mentioned above. John and I worked together to work on AGV. I took in charge of a design of electrical hardware of AGV and firmware of driving all the hardware. John deals with the control algorithm of AGV. In comparison to Japanese AGV, our AGV draws a lot of attention from many Taiwanese companies due to its stability and low fabrication costs.

3. Automated Guided Forklift

This project is in cooperation with the largest electrical forklift manufacturer in Taiwan. At this project, the company provides us with an electrical forklift for an experiment. They want us to develop an auto-cruising function by tracing the magnetic tapes for their forklifts. John and I are currently working together to develop this function. I have designed an electric circuit to control a forklift platform and wrote firmware to drive the forklift. John is developing a control algorithm. We are still in collaboration with our work to enable the forklift to trace a magnetic tape smoothly. The company sponsor said the forklift with this function benefits the company with enhanced competitiveness.