Multi-criteria Intelligent Dispatching Control of Automated Guided Vehicles in FMS

In flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are used for transportation of the processed materials between various pickup and delivery points. The assignment of an AGV to a workcentre from a set of workcentres simultaneously requesting the service for transport of a part is often solved in real-time with simple dispatching rules. This paper proposes an intelligent dispatching approach for the AGVs based on multi-criteria fuzzy logic controller, which simultaneously takes into account multiple aspects in every dispatching decision. The controller operates in two stages in which the second stage is constructed as a conflict resolving tool between two equally ranked AGVs for a particular workcentre. The control system is being implemented using MATLAB and its fuzzy inference engine. Sample runs have been provided to illustrate the controller implementation