Design of automatic guided vehicle systems

Analysis techniques and a methodological framework for specifying the operational characteristics of an automatic guided vehicles system (AGVS) are presented. It is shown that the design of an AGVS can determine the minimum number of vehicles required in a system. A large scale integer program which can be formulated to include such factors as time phased pickup and dropoff requirements, pickup and dropoff area floor space capacity, and track congestion is shown to be intractable. Rather, a simple time dependent model which can be used to find the minimum number of vehicles is suggested. Other analysis tools for evaluating time dependent behavior of an AGVS are supplied. A procedure for dispatching vehicles is developed and a method for measuring the blocking time caused by congestion is provided.