TUBE NEWS TN September 2019 | Seite 8

Optical guidance with the OGS 600 AGV Navigation: What are the Possibilities? Various technologies are available on the market for bringing an automated guided vehicle (AGV) to its destination. Let us first of all say: many roads lead to Rome. There is no right way and no wrong way. Decisive is always the application itself – that means the question of where and how the given AGV is used. There are different processes and technologies for navigating an AGV from point A to point B. The various possibilities range from contour navigation (natural navigation) to laser radar, optical or inductive guidance to grid navigation. Which technology is used depends above all on the specific application. vehicle or a platform vehicle. Drive-under vehicles are those that move under the load to be transported and lift it up. Their design makes them unsuitable for, e.g., laser radar, fundamentally excluding this process for such AGVs. Platform vehicles are those onto which the load is pushed and that transport their cargo on the vehicle. The price of the AGV itself can also be used as a rough guideline. The costs for the navigation technology should not exceed 5% of the AGV price. For example: for a EUR 10,000 AGV, contour navigation and laser radar do not come into question as their cost lies above the threshold of 500 euro. Against this background, the individual navigation possibilities are considered in detail below with regard to their possible fields of application. Another decisive criterion for one or the other variant is whether the given AGV is a drive-under 8 TUBE NEWS September 2019 Contour navigation (natural navigation) Contour navigation is also referred to as “natural navigation.” These are the most technically complex as well as the most expensive types of navigation