The AGV is mainly composed of a guiding module, a walking module, a control module, a communication device, a transfer device, and a storage battery. Among them, the guiding module and the control module are key modules of the AGV. The AGV technology first appeared in the United States. The famous Ford Motor Company was the pioneer of AGV applications. In 1913, the rail-guided AGV was used instead of the conveyor to be applied to the automobile chassis assembly line. At that time, the AGV did not belong to the automatic guided car, but needed to use the track to work on a specific path, which is quite different from the autonomous guided AGV currently applied. In 1953, the American company designed the first electromagnetically guided AGV. Although the patent of AGV was still rare at this time, it has opened up the research hotspot of AGV navigation technology.
AGV technology branch frame diagram
Since the 1980s, a small peak in the research of AGV technology has been opened, mainly because wireless guidance technology has been introduced into the AGV system, and the most typical and most typical is laser guidance. The introduction of laser guidance has made the AGV a great advance in flexibility and precision. After the 21st century, the technical research of AGV entered the bottleneck period. The number of AGV patent applications in this period showed a downward trend. The technical problem that needs to be overcome is the integration of flexibility and large-scale dispatching system. After 2010, AGV ushered in another development peak, thanks to the development of large servers, data processors and new guidance methods, such as non-reflective laser autonomous navigation technology, making AGV more intelligent and modular.
The patent applications of AGV robots are mainly concentrated in Japan, the United States, Europe, South Korea, China and other countries. Japan has simplified the research on complex AGV and converted it into AGC. It surpassed the AGV originating country in the number of patent applications, ranking first. The introduction of AGV in China was relatively late, but there was a tendency to follow the trend. The AGV filings ranked second only to Japan, ranking second. Domestic patent applicants are mainly concentrated in universities and small and medium-sized enterprises, among which university applicants such as Suzhou Industrial Park Vocational and Technical College, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Hefei University of Technology. Among the SME applicants, Aijiwei Robot Co., Ltd. has a large proportion. After 2014, the latest application volume ranked first in the country, and the application quality is high, and there are many invention patents, including the invention of non-reflective laser autonomous navigation technology. patent.
AGV technology branch frame diagram
Through the indexing of AGV-related patent documents, it is found that the patent application focuses on many fields, and its core includes improving the navigation method research (selecting a specific guiding method according to the specific application environment, or using a combination of multiple guiding methods to learn from each other to achieve Better comprehensive effect), AGV's own positioning accuracy, control system and path planning methods, such as improving the positioning accuracy of the guiding device itself, designing the integrated control system, and selecting the path planning method to achieve accurate positioning of the AGV.
In summary, with the development of computer technology and intelligent control strategies, AGV has begun to move toward integration and intelligence. The main focus is on the accuracy of AGV's own positioning and the control of walking methods, and the application volume of core technologies is mainly concentrated. In countries such as Europe, America, Japan and South Korea, China started late in the AGV. In the future, we should concentrate on improving the navigation methods, control methods and AGV structure, and strive for more voices in the AGV intellectual property rights.
