Modelling and analysis of an Automated Guided Vehicle (A.G.

V)
Kinematic analysis

Krishna Kanth.T
B.Tech Mechanical Engineering

MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF AN AUTOMATED GUIDED VEHICLE (A.G.V)

By Krishna Kanth. T B.Tech Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Science & Technology IFHE University, Hyderabad.

Abstract
An automated guided vehicle (A.G.V) is a mobile robot that follows markers or wires in the floor, or uses vision or lasers to facilitate in their motion in the corresponding space. They are most often used in industrial applications for material handling in the manufacturing lines. Majority of the manufacturing facilities would be more productive with the implementation of Automated Retrieval (AR) & Automated Storage (AS) commonly known as AR/AS. The AR/AS system involves A.G.Vs. Applications of A.G.Vs : They are commonly used for raw material handling, work-in-process movement, finished product handling, pallet handling and many other tasks in Pharmaceutical, Chemical, Manufacturing, Automotive, Paper & print, Food & beverage, Ware houses, hospitals and other sectors. Advantages of A.G.Vs : Operation is precise and safe, it involves no human intervention once the programming and setting up is done, flexibility, highly efficient, reliable, low running and low maintenance costs and compatible with any type of automation. In order to achieve more productivity, accuracy and the other advantages mentioned above, most of the companies are implementing A.G.Vs in their manufacturing facilities. It is essential to perform modelling and analysis of the A.G.V system to be incorporated in the manufacturing facilities for having optimum results. The elements which facilitate in performing the tasks to be done by the A.G.V can be added during the modelling; analysis can be performed by using any standard analysis software thus developing a custom A.G.V as per requirement. Also, in order to choose a suitable A.G.V, modelling and analysis along with simulation are very handy tools. Kinematic analysis facilitates in construction and control of the A.G.V.

Introduction
Various analyses that are involved for optimisation of an A.G.V can be broadly categorised as follows 1) Structural analysis of the A.G.V to determine its load carrying capacity and thus optimising it, 2) Kinematic analysis, 3) Dynamic analysis and 4) Time study.
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In this project, kinematic analysis of an A.G.V has been taken up and the case of a simple 3 wheeled mobile robot (WMR) for the purpose of analysis. In contrast to robot manipulators which are holonomic systems, kinematic and dynamics analyses of WMR is more complicated as it may involve non-holonomic constraints. It is easier to analyse the WMR in quasi-static analysis in which the forces and moments are balanced. The ultimate aim of this project is to describe the kinematics and inverse kinematics of a WMR which form the basis of an A.G.V.

Preliminaries
In classical mechanics, holonomic constraints are relations between the coordinates (and possibly time) which can be expressed in the following form: f (q1, q2, q3,., qn, t) = 0, where {q1, q2, q3,, qn} are the n coordinates which describe the system. For example, the motion of a particle constrained to lie on the surface of a sphere is subject to a holonomic constraint, but if the particle is able to fall off the sphere under the influence of gravity, the constraint becomes non-holonomic. Whereas in conditions where the velocity-dependent constraints such as f (q1, q2,..., qn, t)=0 are not usually holonomic.

Kinematic analysis
It is assumed that the automated vehicle under consideration contains three wheels and a platform. The platform is coupled to the rear wheels by revolute pairs. Only the rear wheels are motor driven and hence, the vehicle has 2 degrees of freedom (D.O.F). Therefore, the angular displacements can be considered as independent joint variables. A caster wheel is attached at the front for smooth movement, load carrying strength and also for the stability of the WMR. The caster wheel is free to attain any orientation as per the motion of WMR.

For kinematic analyses, a coordinate frame of x,y,z are considered and i,j,k are the unit vectors situated at the centroid of the WMR. The wheels are numbered as 1, 2, 3 and their centres are denoted as O1, O2 and O3 respectively as shown in fig.

Velocity and acceleration analysis

Velocity and acceleration analysis of mechanisms can be performed vectorially using the relative velocity and acceleration concept. Usually we start with the given values and work through the mechanism by way of series of points A, B, C, etc. Solving vector equations in the form: VB=VA+VB/A VC=VB+VC/B aB=aA+atB/A+anB/A aC=aB+atC/B+anC/B The points that one has to use are usually the revolute joint axes between the links since these are the points where the relative velocity or acceleration between the two coincident points on two different links are zero and they have equal velocity and accelerations. If we are to determine the velocity of a point on a link we must first determine the velocity of the points located at the joint axes. According to the fig. the velocity of point C can be written as: Vc = C* = VO1 + VC/O1 where, VO1 is the velocity if the point O1 and VC/O1 is the relative velocity of C with respect to O1. VO1 can be written in terms of the radius, r of the wheels and the spinning speed of the wheel 1 whose direction is positive in anti-clockwise direction about vector I as: VO1 = - 1 r j and VC/O1 can be given as a cross product of the angular velocity, w, of the vehicle with respect to vector joining O1 with C as: VC/O1=w x O1C The angular velocity of the WMR can be written as: W = (r/l) (1- 2) k Therefore, the actuated joint rates can be expressed in terms of the angular velocity of the vehicle from the above relation as: VC=C*= [-(ar/l) (1- 2)]i [(r/2)( 1+ 2)]j Combining the above equations and the twist tp of the platform to be defined presently is written as a linear transformation of the actuated joint rate vector a:
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tp = T p a

To obtain the relation between the acceleration of the platform and the actuated joint accelerations and rates, we differentiate the equations obtained in the velocity analysis, which leads to: tp = Tp aCENTRIFUGAL + Tp* aCORIOLIS

Inverse Kinematics
Inverse kinematics is defined as: Given the Cartesian positions, velocities and acceleration, determine the joint variables. Since the motion of platform is planar, a 6D twist vector can reduced to a 3D vector defined in terms of the angular velocity component about k,w and the C* component along i,x and the C* component along j,y of the vehicle. The new 3D twist vector can be written as: tp = Tp x a where,

By matrix transformations using Moore-Penrose generalised inversion, Tp can be expressed as:

Now, the actuated joint accelerations can be computed as: a = TpI[tp-Tp a] where, TpI = (TpT x Tp)-1 x TpT

To obtain the actual joint angles, a = [1, 2]T which relates the Cartesian velocities with the joint rates with known initial conditions
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Direct Kinematics
Direct kinematics is defined as: Given the joint variables, determine the Cartesian positions, velocities and accelerations of the system. Velocities and accelerations can be easily computed from the equations derived above in the velocity analysis. But to obtain the Cartesian positions which is necessary to manipulate the location of the vehicle, the twist relation can be expressed as: W = (r/l) (1- 2) X* = x cos y sin Y* = x sin + y cos where, is the angle between moving frame of the unit vectors I,j,k and the frame. X* and Y* are the C* components along the X and Y directions of the fixed coordinate frame. The equations are non-holonomic in nature. With the known initial positions and input a, position of the vehicle at any time can be obtained.

Conclusion
In this project, the advantages of using AR/AS systems in industries have been highlighted. Due to the mentioned advantages, AR/AS are being rapidly implemented in the manufacturing facilities. The need for modelling and analysis of an A.G.V which is the key part of an AR/AS system has been identified. Kinematic analysis of an A.G.V is important because it determines the position of the vehicle, joint actuation rates and other important working parameters that are required for the construction and controlling of the robot. Velocity and acceleration analysis of the two revolute joints of the 3 wheel, 2 DOF vehicle have been performed using the concept of relative velocity. Direct and inverse kinematic analyses have been performed using simple mathematic transformations of the equations obtained in velocity and acceleration analysis. By considering some arbitrary initial conditions, the WMRs parameters can be found using the equations derived. Based on the numerical results and simulation obtained, construction and control of the A.G.V can be planned and enables the user to customise the A.G.V as per requirement from the basic design considered in this project.

References
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