Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are often used in the material handling industry to haul various goods. An AGV operating in a warehouse, for example, is often presented with people or objects in the path of the vehicle, thereby requiring a safety stop of the vehicle prior to contact between the vehicle and the people or objects. Some conventional AGVs have noncontact sensing devices to sense people or objects in the vehicle's path, and thereby trigger stopping of the vehicle. These noncontact sensing devices must be fail-safe in their operation and are typically required to satisfy certain safety standards. One common safety standard that noncontact sensing devices on AGVs typically must satisfy is ANSI/ITSDF B56.5-2005 (hereinafter “ANSI B56.5”). Typically, a manual safety verification process is performed on each AGV to ensure that the AGV complies with one or more safety standards, or to ensure that sensors on the AGV are working properly, before the AGV is put into (or back into) service. A manual safety verification process is performed by a human and can take as long as thirty minutes for each AGV and is subject to human error or neglect. The present invention overcomes many problems inherent in manual safety verification processes.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds