Scientific paper ID 1392 : 2016/3

Systems for assisting drivers in driving vehicles, and even to allow automated driving of vehicles, became the focus of research in the automotive industry. But, similar systems are already in use in the production process in the automotive industry. In factories, the automatized guiding of vehicles is much easier to realize than in the road transportation conditions. In most cases, factories have well-defined transport routes, with or without crossings, and with a limited number and types of vehicles. Although it is to expect that the serial and mass production imply processes which are well defined, long lasting, and rarely changeable, automated guided vehicles (AGV) systems allow flexible routing and delivery of materials, components, and/or products.

In the frame of this work, some of the systems for automatic guiding of vehicles used for parts transportation are presented, as well as some of the methodologies for their evaluation. Here are presented some ways of the vehicles controlling and communications, together with a brief analysis of AGV INDUMAT systems used in the FIAT factories Mirafiori, and Melfi. The methodology covers three operation criteria: the success of the mission, time, and the length of the route. The evaluation s factors time and route length because it is quite possible that longer route can sometimes give the shorter time of transportation because the vehicles can run faster. All criteria are normalized, because of the different dispositions of working places and different AVG systems, to make comparison easier.