摘要 |
<p>In an automatic guided vehicle system for guiding a driverless vehicle (10) over a predetermined path of travel without any tracks, wires or the like the vehicle is provided with an active optical navigation section (103) for determining vehicle position and bearing by scanning a plurality of beacons (12 to 24) distributed within the zone of travel of the vehicle, a passive ground navigation section (105) including a gyrocompass (58) for measuring changes in bearing of the vehicle and a wheel encoder (62) for measuring distance travelled by the vehicle's steering wheel. Memory onboard the vehicle contains a series of path vectors which define a predetermined path of travel for the vehicle. The ground navigation section updates vehicle position and bearing as determined by the optical navigation section. A programmed onboard computer (100) includes driver software for generating steering data so as to guide the vehicle over a corrective arc path from its position and bearing, as determined by the navigation sections, to the desired position and bearing as indicated by a stored path vector. </p> |