Mechanical Design and Analysis of AGV for Cost Reduction of Material Handling in Automobile Industries

Automated Guided vehicle or AGV is one of material handling equipment that has been used widely in most automotive industry today as it provides more flexibility to the system. The basic concept of the AGV incorporates battery powered and driverless vehicles with programming capabilities for path selection and positioning. They are equipped to navigate a flexible guide path network that can be easily modified and expanded. Years ago when the AGV technology firstimplemented, it was called driverless vehicle and navigated base on embedded wire or reflected light from paint strip mounted on the floor where the route is preprogrammed in the AGV system. Instead of navigating using fixed path, the AGV now able to navigate freely distance it has traveled or using other landmark or equipment as a reference. Through this report, the types of AGV, the basic concept, the classification of the AGV, types of navigation techniques and thesteering mechanism that usually used in common AGV will be reviewed,. The, this report will be focusing on the mechanical design concept of the AGV which combines knowledge on mechanical parts such as the electric motor, gears, wheels, structure of the AGV, control system and so on.