The solution proposed by the scholar is therefore able, thanks to an accurate mathematical construction, to “draw” a soft conduction of the curve by the Agv, which is therefore able to correct, if necessary, the radius with which it was set bending at the entrance, but without too sudden movements or too frequent interventions.
The tool developed by Suffritti also acts to circumvent obstacles and allows the insertion of elements in the Agv programming that were not initially foreseen such as columns, areas with prohibited access because they are intended for the circulation of people, new machinery installed, and so on. Suffritti worked on to improve the performance of the Agvs concerns the generation of speed profiles.
«Basically it is an improvement of the system used previously, which consisted in identifying the most stringent constraint of a curve, for example the point where there is a more sudden variation of the curvature which also requires the most accentuated slowdown of the machine. Once this constraint was identified, it was then applied to the entire curve, which was therefore all conducted at a fixed speed, the maximum possible at the most critical point of the route ».
Suffritti’s analysis started from the idea of verifying whether this strategy could be improved. “In particular – continues the researcher – I thought of a solution to identify a speed profile that is not fixed, but dynamic, capable of adapting along the conduct of the curve to its various critical points”.
From the tests conducted in the company, significant advantages have emerged in the use of these two approaches, which have been translated into algorithms that can be used during the design of the layouts and paths that the Agvs can take within them. Tools that therefore allow, already in the design phase, to have precise estimates of the travel time of the AGVs in an industrial application based on variable and non-fixed speeds.