Aerospace & Defense Technology - February 2023 - 29

RF & Microwave Technology
The Future of Automated Guided Vehicles for Aerospace and Defense
Next-generation AGVs are already starting to deliver labor and cost savings for the U.S. defense
industry, and the commercial aerospace sector is watching closely.
T
his year marks the 70th anniversary
of the first automated guided vehicle,
and AGVs have been moving
things around on humans' behalf ever
since. But today's AGVs aren't your
grandparents' AGVs, and their sophistication
is catching up with the
21st-century demands of manufacturing
and maintenance tasks for the
aerospace and defense industries.
An AGV is a robot that travels along
marked lines or wires on the floor, or
uses radio waves, vision cameras, magnets
or lasers for navigation. Nowadays,
systems with newer technology
might also be called autonomous
mobile robots (AMRs), but the first
automated guided vehicle was built
back in 1953 when Arthur " Mac " Barrett
modified a towing tractor so that it
could follow an overhead wire.
Mac's company, Barrett Electronics
Corporation, began selling his driverless
vehicle in 1954 as the Guide-oMatic,
and AGVs were commonplace
by the end of the 20th century as a
solution for repetitive manual labor
Aerospace & Defense Technology, February 2023
tasks. AGVs have long been used to
transport materials around factories
and warehouses in a wide range of
industries, including aerospace and
defense. Now, next-generation AGVs
are already starting to deliver additional
labor and cost savings for the U.S.
defense industry, and the commercial
aerospace sector is watching closely.
High Value, Low Infrastructure
The value of mobile self-navigating
robots, such as the AGV that was built
for WR-ALC, lies in their ability to be
rapidly repurposed to service multiple
objectives in several locations.
Next-generation AGVs will become
increasingly indispensable in aerospace
and defense because they allow
you to reap the benefits of introducing
a robotic system into a facility without
adding a lot of supporting infrastructure.
Right
now, for example, the AGV at
WR-ALC has been programmed for a
particular building at that site, but the
system's portability means it could be
mobilityengineeringtech.com
easily redeployed to a different building.
It would then just be a matter of
having the LiDAR sensor map the layout
of the new location before putting
the robot back to work.
If an AGV is sufficiently versatile, in
addition to using it to complete the
same task in a different location, you
can reprogram and repurpose the unit
for a different task that requires a robot
of the same size and capabilities. In
this way, mobile robots are compatible
with the " Factory of the Future " concept,
which recommends that manufacturers
enhance production by using
smart robots to make the plant structure
more flexible and multipurpose.
Robots are increasingly easy to program
and reprogram and, for example,
the FANUC-brand cobot that powers
the AGV at WR-ALC is promoted as " the
perfect solution for manufacturers with
little to no robotic experience. " FANUC's
CRX series offers all-new lead-through
programming features and a new
teach-pendant user interface with simple
drag-and-drop programming.
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Aerospace & Defense Technology - February 2023

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