On the use of automated guided vehicles in flexible manufacturing systems

In manufacturing systems, material transport plays a key role for production process efficiency. Because of their advantages over other material handling systems such as conveyors and robots, AGVs are widely used in flexible manufacturing systems. The scheduling of several AGVs in a non-conflicting manner is a complicated problem, especially when the AGV system is bi-directional. In fact, many undesirable situations may arise such as deadlocks and head-on conflicts if no efficient control policy is used to prevent them. This paper presents the key issues to be addressed to efficiently employ these devices, and deal particularly with the traffic management problem.