Design of a double-deck automatic guided vehicle with magnetic traction for material transporting

Automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) are pervasively used in plants, warehouses, institutes, and ports. Research on AGVs for foodstuff, biochemistry, medical testing, etc. however, due to their speciality, attracted little attention. In this paper, a novel double-deck AGV for material transporting in a narrow enclosed channel is proposed. This vehicle is composed of a trailer (the upper deck) and a tractor (the lower deck), which are separated by the channel floor. The upper and lower decks move synchronously by magnetic attraction induced by unaligned position of two sets of permanent magnets. The shape and layout of the magnets are analyzed to maximize the magnetic traction and minimize the friction of wheels. The AGV is designed in compact and modular structure, manoeuvrable and convenient to maintain. Application results show that the AGV system works reliable, operates simple and is easy to control, etc., which makes it particularly suitable to accomplish tasks of material transporting in narrow enclosed channels.