| Modern factories require means of transportation controllable by main scheduler or supervisor. This motivates an increasing use of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) in automated plants and other reasonably well-structured environments. This Paper describes the design and development of a low cost Automated Guided Vehicle prototype intended for educational use to simulate the transportation system in a manufacturing sector. The prototype can simulate material movement between cells, from packaging to shipping, from receiving to storage and as a material transfer device at the front end of an automated storage system. The prototype made is hoped to be a learning device that will be able to make a contribution in the effort of achieving efficiency and effectiveness in the manufacturing industry by delivering knowledge about the implementation and the use of automated guided vehicle system for industrial elements (e.g. factory lay-out and material flow improvements). The designs and concepts of the AGV prototype are adopted from the real vehicle. The quantitative analysis of automated guided vehicle system is done in order to determine the most effective use of the AGVS. By doing the quantitative analysis of automated guided vehicle system, it is hoped that the use of AGV will be maximized in order to obtain greater productivity in a manufacturing industry. The test result proves that the prototype is able to simulate the transportation of materials in an industry application. The operational and control systems of the prototype are made simple and easy to understand with the use of an Easy Programmable Control and the ProChart software. |