An autonomous industrial robot for loading and unloading goods

Abstract

In industries loading and unloading of heavy loads manually is one of the most important task which turns out to be quite difficult, time-consuming and risky for humans. This paper illustrates the mechanical design of the industry based automated robot which include: Ackerman Steering Mechanism and Differential Mechanism. Ackerman Steering allows front two wheels to turn left and right in the track without going out of the track. Differential has been mounted with two back wheels and a DC motor has been used with its controller to start motion of the robot. The autonomous robot is designed to start its movement from a starting position where goods are loaded on it, then follow a path of white line drawn on black surface and unload goods by itself after reaching a destination place. Digital Line Following sensor has been mounted in front of the robot so that the sensor can detect path by emitting and receiving signals allowing it to move in the pre-defined track having left and right turns while carrying goods from starting position to the destination. The main objective is to load and unload heavy goods that has been achieved by two large linear actuators for producing required torque and force necessary to unload heavy loads up to 150kg sideways to the ground safely. Besides, the robot has been built up having the ability to avoid collision with any obstacles that come in its way. Building an industrial robot with moderate speed, good efficiency for loading and unloading purpose within a short time to ease human suffering has been the main focus of this paper.