The automated guided vehicle system consists of two vehicles and has wide variety applications related to safety and logistics.
As a safety feature it can be integrated with an automobile to avoid two vehicles ever colliding (an anti-collision system). This feature not only guarantees driving on the road a lot safer for everyone, but it can assist the handicapped and the elderly as a driving aide. The other feature is that it can operate on with no human assistance. Taking the instance of a convoy of vehicles. The front vehicle can detect the path it should follow and the 2nd vehicle can follow the first, the 3rd can follow the 2nd and so on. Thus this system can be adapted for use in controlling convoys of vehicles which can find uses in logistics, parks and military escorts.
This project was submitted as an entry to the Common Design Project competition (for a guided vehicle system) at the IEEE Student's Day in University of Sharjah.
The Arduino was the micro-controller of choice for this project. Arduino is a fusion of three critical elements: hardware, software, and community. One of the key aspects of the success of Arduino has been the community that has sprung up around it due to the open nature of the Arduino software and hardware. The software used on Arduino is entirely open source and the hardware design information is available under Creating Commons Licenses.
This report will guide the reader through the steps taken in crafting an automated guided vehicle system using Arduino.
The track, described in chapter 1, used for testing the system was built using dimensions in the IEEE regulations.
The leading vehicle detects the boundaries of the track and guides the guiding vehicle. It is placed at the start line and maneuvers itself along the confines of the track and comes to a halt at the end of the track. The construction of the leading vehicle, making its PCB and programming is dealt in chapter 2.
The Guided Vehicle relies on locating the leading vehicle and moving towards it. So long as the leading vehicle moves in front of it, the guided vehicle shall move and consequently follow it. The construction, explanation of components and programming of the guided vehicle will be addressed in chapter 3.