JPH0822122B2 - Transport device control device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Object of the Invention (Industrial field of application) The present invention relates to a transport system for transporting articles in factories, offices, and the like, and particularly to traveling by inertia under a propulsive force. The present invention relates to a control device for a transfer device that controls traveling of a plurality of transfer vehicles.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, stators of linear induction motors (hereinafter abbreviated as LIMs) are dispersedly arranged on guide rails, and a mover is attached to the carrier side, and when the carrier approaches the LIM, L
The carrier system that excites IM to accelerate, decelerate, and stop, when there are multiple carriers, can accelerate, decelerate, and stop the carrier only under the LIM.
A method has been adopted in which a large number of control zones divided so as to include the above are defined, and whether or not there is a transport vehicle in the control zone ahead is detected in advance to control traveling.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) In the above-described conventional control device for a carrier device, if there is a carrier vehicle in the front control zone, the controller stops for another carrier vehicle entering the own control zone. Will be in control. At this time, if the impact on the transport vehicle is to be reduced, the traveling speed of the transport vehicle must be kept low. On the other hand, if the vehicle is suddenly accelerated to improve transport efficiency, the impact on the transport vehicle is increased. There is a relationship that For this reason, conventionally, the conveyance speed has been reduced to an allowable range, and the impact accompanying this has been accepted as unavoidable. For this reason, there is a problem that the transfer efficiency is low despite the large impact.

It should be noted that in the case of a general control device in which one control device is provided for each LIM and this is managed by the host control device, the transfer efficiency is increased to some extent by sequentially accelerating and decelerating over multiple control zones. Although it is possible to reduce the impact together with the improvement of the above, there is a problem in that the load of the host control device becomes too large as the number of control devices increases and it becomes impossible to deal with it.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a control device for a transfer device capable of improving the transfer efficiency and reducing the impact without increasing the load on the host control device. To do.

(Means for Solving Problems) According to the present invention, stators of linear motors are arranged at predetermined intervals along a guide rail for traveling a carrier vehicle, and
A transport device in which a mover of a linear motor is mounted on the transport vehicle, and the stator is excited by a motor drive device to generate a propulsive force or a braking force on the transport vehicle, is classified so as to include one stator. An upper control unit that generates a command relating to traveling of the guided vehicle for each control zone, a detector that detects the position and speed of the guided vehicle for each control zone, and a self-control unit provided for each control zone. Based on the detection signals of the detectors of the three or more control zones that are continuous in the traveling direction of the guided vehicle including the zones and the command of the upper control unit, the acceleration / deceleration is continuously performed in the plurality of control zones. And a subordinate control unit for controlling the motor drive device in the control zone.

(Operation) In the present invention, the lower control unit provided for each control zone detects the detection signals of the detectors of the three or more control zones that are continuous in the traveling direction of the guided vehicle including the own control zone and commands the upper control unit. Based on the above, the motor drive device of the own control zone is controlled so as to continuously accelerate and decelerate the transport vehicle in a plurality of control zones, so that the acceleration / deceleration amount per control zone can be greatly reduced. It is possible to simultaneously reduce the load on the control unit, improve the transfer efficiency, and reduce the impact.

(Embodiment) FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the guide rails 1 are installed along a predetermined transportation track, and on the guide rails 1, LIMs 2 are distributed and arranged at various places. An induction motor drive device 3 for driving each LIM 2 is connected to each LIM 2. The induction motor driving device 3 is a device for varying the generated thrust force or the braking force of the LIM 2, and is composed of, for example, a variable voltage / variable frequency inverter or the like. The induction motor drive unit 3 is provided with a control unit 5 for controlling the drive unit 3, and based on the output of the position / speed detector 4 for detecting the position and speed of the transport vehicle traveling on the transport route, traveling and local collision are detected. Operation management such as avoidance is performed. In addition, the control unit 5 is connected to a transfer control device 6 as a higher-level control unit for controlling these, and manages the operation control of the transfer vehicle of the entire system. The transport route is divided into control zones so as to each include LIM2, and the control unit 5 provided corresponding to each of the transport zones is located in the front two zones and the rear two zones when viewed from the traveling direction of the transport vehicle. They are connected to each other so that the detection signal of the detector 4 can also be taken in.

The operation of this embodiment configured as described above will be described below.

The transport control device 6 presets operation contents such as starting and stopping for each control unit 5. Further, when a carrier vehicle enters each control zone, the position / speed detector 4 detects this and also detects the speed. When the position / speed detector 4 of the own control zone detects the transport vehicle while referring to the set value of the transport control device 6, the control unit 5 detects the state of the zone up to two zones ahead of the traveling direction of the transport vehicle, for example, With respect to the presence or absence of a carrier vehicle, signals are exchanged between the control units 5 to determine whether the carrier vehicle is accelerated or decelerated, and a command is given to the induction motor drive device 3. In this case, the control unit 5
Controls the motor drive device in its own control zone so as to continuously accelerate and decelerate in a plurality of control zones. This will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

FIG. 2 is for explaining the control at the time of starting, and it is assumed that the transfer control device 6 issues a command to start to the right in the drawing while the transfer vehicle 10 is stopped in the control zone A. .
At this time, the control unit 5 of the control zone A communicates with the control units 5 of the control zones B and C, and after confirming that there is no transport vehicle in either of them, the transport vehicle 10 is connected via the induction motor drive device 3. To accelerate. In this case, the control unit 5 in the control zone A presumes that the control zone B also accelerates, and accelerates to a speed of approximately 50% of the specified maximum speed V _MAX .

Next, the control unit 5 of the control zone B communicates with the control units 5 of the control zones C and D, and after confirming that there is no transport vehicle in either of them, the transport vehicle 10 is driven via the induction motor drive device 3. To accelerate. At this time, the control unit 5 in the control zone B
Accelerates so that the deviation from the specified maximum speed V _MAX becomes zero, but it is not possible to correct all of the deviation at once, so the control section 5 of the control zones C and D controls exactly the same. And accelerate the carrier 10 to the maximum speed V _MAX .

FIG. 3 is for explaining the control at the time of stop. In the control zone D, the forward vehicle 11 is stopped and the forward vehicle 10 is stopped.
Suppose that the vehicle has passed the control zone A at the maximum speed V _MAX . The control unit 5 of the control zone B recognizes that the front transport vehicle 11 is in the control zone D, that the transport vehicle 10 has arrived at its own control zone, and recognizes its speed, and stops the transport vehicle 10 in the control zone C. Therefore, the speed is reduced to the speed at which one LIM can stop. Subsequently, the control unit 5 of the control zone C also has the front carrier 11 in the control zone D, and the carrier 10 in the own control zone.
Recognize that the vehicle has arrived and its speed,
Stop in its own control zone.

In this way, by accelerating and decelerating the transport vehicle over several control zones, it is possible to increase the overall transport speed and reduce shocks when starting and stopping.

Further, since control such as rear-end collision prevention is performed by the control unit 5, the transport control device 6 only needs to issue an operation command to the control unit 5.
Not only the drawback of the conventional apparatus that the load increases by accelerating and decelerating the carrier over several control zones is solved, but also the load is reduced.

In the above embodiment, the traveling speed is controlled according to the state of the two zones ahead of the carrier vehicle, but the present invention is not limited to this, and the traveling speed of the carrier vehicle is higher,
When the vehicle cannot be stopped by decelerating over two stages, the traveling control of the guided vehicle may be performed according to the state of the control zone three stages or more ahead.

Further, in the above embodiment, the approaching vehicle is controlled by the operation command of the transportation control device 6, but as shown in FIG. 4, the vehicle number detector 12 is attached to each control unit, and the transportation control device is installed. The specified operation may be performed only when the specific vehicle number specified by 6 and the detected vehicle number match.

〔The invention's effect〕

As apparent from the above description, according to the present invention,
A lower-level control unit provided for each control zone controls the guided vehicle based on detection signals from detectors in three or more control zones that are continuous in the traveling direction of the guided vehicle including the own control zone and a command from the upper-level control unit. By controlling the motor drive device of its own control zone so as to continuously accelerate and decelerate in multiple control zones, the amount of acceleration and deceleration per control zone can be greatly reduced, reducing the load on the host controller Improved efficiency and reduced shock can be achieved at the same time.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the construction of an embodiment of the present invention, FIGS. 2 and 3 are explanatory views for explaining the operation of the embodiment, and FIG. 4 shows the construction of another embodiment. It is a block diagram. 1 ... Guide rail, 2 ... Linear induction motor stator, 3 ... Induction motor drive device, 4 ... Position speed detector, 5 ... Control unit, 6 ... Transport control device, 10, 11 ... Carrier, 12 …… Vehicle number detector.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A stator of a linear motor is arranged at a predetermined interval along a guide rail for traveling a carrier vehicle, and
A transport device in which a mover of a linear motor is mounted on the transport vehicle, and the stator is excited by a motor drive device to generate a propulsive force or a braking force on the transport vehicle, is classified so as to include one stator. A host controller that generates a command relating to traveling of the carrier for each control zone,
Detectors for detecting the position and speed of the transport vehicle for each of the control zones, and three or more control zones that are provided for each of the control zones and that are continuous in the traveling direction of the transport vehicle including their own control zones. Based on a detection signal of a detector and a command of the upper control unit, a lower control unit for controlling the motor drive device in the own control zone so as to continuously accelerate and decelerate in a plurality of control zones is provided. And a control device for the transport device.