AgvTalk: An object-oriented simulator for AGV systems

In this paper, AgvTalk, an object-oriented simulation tool for the design and analysis of AGV system configuration and control is presented. Smalltalk-80 is used as an implementation language in AgvTalk. AgvTalk includes 25 object classes and more than 300 object methods in its library. Compared to general purpose simulation languages, AgvTalk provides several important benefits. First, the hierarchical features and modularity create possibilities for the extension and reuse of simulation object components. This extensibility and reusability provide more flexible modeling capabilities for simulation of many alternative AGV systems. Second, detailed behavior of each object in the AGV system can be modeled easily and exactly because there are no limiting modeling constructs. Third, AgvTalk provides a user-friendly simulation modeling environment through the MVC-triad of Smalltalk-80. This paper also presents a one-to-one comparison of modeling features between AgvTalk with traditional simulation languages.