Article Transport Facility

• US 20130275045A1
• Filed: 04/09/2013
• Published: 10/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Daifuku Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Daifuku Company Limited
• Inventors: Tsujimoto, Masanori, Hara, Yoshimasa, Takagawa, Natsuo, Mariyama, Toshisada, Kubota, Koji
• Granted Patent: US 8,862,397 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/517
• CPC Class Codes: B60P 1/00 Vehicles predominantly for transporting loads and modified to facilitate loading, consolidating the load, or unloading vehicles for carrying harvested crops with means for self-loading or self-unloading A01D90/00; peculiar to refuse collecting-vehicles B65F; loading or unloading vehicles by means not incorporated therein B65G
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0223 involving speed control of the vehicle vehicle fittings for automatically controlling, i.e. preventing speed from exceeding an arbitrarily established velocity or maintaining speed at a particular velocity, as selected by the vehicle operator B60K31/00
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0261 using magnetic plots
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0297 by controlling means in a control room
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/164 Centralised systems, e.g. external to vehicles

Abstract

Disclosed is an article transport facility in which interference between an article transport vehicle and an interfering object is prevented. A position detector is provided on the ground side for detecting the position of an interfering object, and an external managing device issues a deceleration command to the article transport vehicle if the distance from the article transport vehicle to the interfering object becomes less than or equal to a predetermined low speed distance, based on position information for the interfering object and travel position information for the article transport vehicle. A vehicle side travel controller changes a target travel speed from a normal travel speed to a reduced travel speed which is lower, or less, than the normal travel speed while the target travel speed is set to the normal travel speed, if the deceleration command is issued from the external managing device.

Claims

1. An article transport facility comprising:

an article transport vehicle configured to travel by an operation of a travel actuating device and along a travel path extending by way of a plurality of article transfer locations;

a ground side travel controller which issues a travel command to the article transport vehicle;

a vehicle side travel controller which is provided to the article transport vehicle, and which controls operation of the travel actuating device based on detected information from a travel position detector which detects a travel position of the article transport vehicle,

wherein the vehicle side travel controller is configured to control operation of the travel actuating device based on travel position information detected by the travel position detector and travel command information from the ground side travel controller in order to cause the article transport vehicle to travel along the travel path toward a target travel position at a target travel speed;

a position detector provided on a ground side for detecting a position of an interfering object that exists in a detection target area which includes an area in which the travel path is installed; and

an external managing device which issues a deceleration command to the article transport vehicle if and when the position of the interfering object with respect to the article transport vehicle is in a low speed area, which is determined in advance with respect to the position of the article transport vehicle, based on position information of the interfering object from the position detector and travel position information of the article transport vehicle;

wherein

the vehicle side travel controller is configured to change the target travel speed from the normal travel speed to a reduced travel speed which is less than the normal travel speed if and when the deceleration command is issued from the external managing device while the target travel speed is set to the normal travel speed.

2. The article transport facility as defined in claim 1, wherein

the low speed area is defined to be a fan-shaped area whose radius is equal to a low speed distance defined in advance and which has its center at the position of the article transport vehicle and spreads forwardly of the article transport vehicle in plan view, and wherein

the external managing device is configured to transmit the deceleration command to the article transport vehicle if and when a distance from the article transport vehicle to the interfering object becomes less than or equal to the low speed distance.

3. The article transport facility as defined in claim 1, wherein

the position detector is a wireless position measuring device which includes wireless tags configured to output positioning wireless signals which are wireless signals for position measurement, a plurality of receivers configured to receive the positioning wireless signals from the wireless tags that exist in the detection target area, and a position calculation portion which calculates positions of the wireless tags in the detection target area based on received information from the plurality of receivers wherein the wireless position measuring device performs a position measurement process in which the position of the interfering object in the detection target area is calculated, wherein

a plurality of the wireless tags are provided to each of the interfering objects, wherein

each of the receivers is configured to receive the positioning wireless signals from only one of the wireless tags at one time, and to receive the positioning wireless signals from the plurality of wireless tags such that the receptions of the positioning wireless signals are staggered over time, wherein

the wireless position measuring device is configured to measure the positions of the interfering objects at every processing time by repeatedly performing the position measurement process at every processing time, and to perform, as the position measurement process, both of a multiple tag position measurement process in which the position of each of the interfering objects is calculated based on a position of each of the plurality of wireless tags associated with each of the interfering objects, and a single tag position measurement process in which the position of each of the interfering objects is calculated to be a position of one of the plurality of wireless tags that are associated with the each of the interfering objects, wherein

the external managing device is configured to set the deceleration command such that the shorter a distance between the article transport vehicle and the interfering object is, the lower a speed indicated by the deceleration command is, and wherein

if the deceleration command set for a distance, between the article transport vehicle and the interfering object, calculated based on the position of the interfering object calculated in the multiple tag position measurement process is different from the deceleration command set for a distance, between the article transport vehicle and the interfering object, calculated based on the position of the interfering object calculated in the single tag position measurement process, the external managing device is configured to select and issue the deceleration command that indicates a slower speed.

4. The article transport facility as defined in claim 1, wherein

the position detector is a wireless position measuring device which includes wireless tags that are provided to the interfering object and that are configured to output positioning wireless signals which are wireless signals for position measurement, a plurality of receivers configured to receive the positioning wireless signals from the wireless tags that exist in the detection target area, and a position calculation portion which calculates positions of the wireless tags in the detection target area based on received information from the plurality of receivers wherein the wireless position measuring device performs a position measurement process in which the position of the interfering object in the detection target area is calculated, wherein

a plurality of the wireless tags are provided to each of the interfering objects, wherein

the receiver is configured to receive the positioning wireless signal from only one of the wireless tags at one time and to receive the positioning wireless signals from the plurality of wireless tags such that the receptions of the positioning wireless signals are staggered over time, wherein

the wireless position measuring device is configured to measure the positions of the interfering objects at every processing time by repeatedly performing the position measurement process at every processing time, and to perform, as the position measurement process, both of a multiple tag position measurement process in which the position of each of the interfering objects is calculated based on a position of each of the plurality of wireless tags associated with each of the interfering objects, and a single tag position measurement process in which the position of each of the interfering objects is calculated to be a position of one of the plurality of wireless tags that are associated with the each of the interfering objects, and wherein

the external managing device is configured to issue the deceleration command if and when at least one of:

a distance, between the article transport vehicle and the interfering object, calculated based on the position of the interfering object calculated in the multiple tag position measurement process; and

a distance, between the article transport vehicle and the interfering object, calculated based on the position of the interfering object calculated in the single tag position measurement process, becomes less than or equal to a distance from the article transport vehicle to an outer edge of the low speed area.

5. The article transport facility as defined in claim 1, wherein

provided as the position detector are a large area detector for detecting the position of the interfering object in an entire area of the detection target area, and a small area detector for detecting the position of the interfering object in an area in the detection target area in which it is difficult to detect the position of an interfering object with the large area detector.

6. The article transport facility as defined in claim 1, wherein

the vehicle side travel controller is configured to change the normal travel speed to a lower speed based on a travel condition, and to maintain the target travel speed at the normal travel speed even if the deceleration command is issued from the ground side travel controller while the target travel speed is set to the normal travel speed if the normal travel speed is less than the reduced travel speed.

7. The article transport facility as defined in claim 1, wherein

the article transport vehicle includes a presence detector for detecting a presence of the interfering object located forwardly in the travel direction of the article transport vehicle, and an auxiliary travel controller which controls operation of the travel actuating device based on the detected information from the presence detector, and wherein

the auxiliary travel controller is configured to change the travel speed of the article transport vehicle from the normal travel speed to a reduced travel speed which is less than the normal travel speed if and when the interfering object is detected by the presence detector while the target travel speed is set to the normal travel speed.

8. The article transport facility as defined in claim 7, wherein

the position detector is configured to transmit interfering object presence information to the presence detector if and when the distance from the article transport vehicle to the interfering object becomes less than or equal to a deceleration distance defined in advance, based on position information of the detected interfering object and travel position information for the article transport vehicle, and wherein

the presence detector is configured to be changed to a detection state in which a presence of the interfering object is detected, upon receiving the interfering object presence information from the said position detector.

9. The article transport facility as defined in claim 1, wherein

the external managing device is configured to be able to determine a kind of interfering object based on detected information from the position detector, and to set a predefined low speed distance differently depending on the kind of interfering object.

10. The article transport facility as defined in claim 1, wherein

the external managing device is configured to be able to set a low speed distance defined in advance for when the interfering object is located forwardly of the article transport vehicle in the travel direction to be different from the low speed distance defined in advance for when the interfering object is located rearwardly of the article transport vehicle in the travel direction.