Operation of vehicles in AGV system and method for analyzing operation

Abstract

SUMMARYIt is important to discuss the behavior of traffic at merging sections for the design and realization of an automated guided vehicle system (AGVS). In this study, we deal with a merging section of the AGVS by considering the time limit for the merging of vehicles. Near the merging section, the traffic flow in one direction forms a queue to avoid collisions between vehicles. We present an improvement of the control strategy proposed in previous research. However, since it is difficult to analyze the mathematical model of the merging section, analysis can be performed only for the case in which the time limit is set to the least values. We also propose a method for analyzing the model for an arbitrary time limit by using a linear recurrence relation. We discuss quantitatively the influence of the time limit on the average queue length and the detour rate.