Smart AGV System for Manufacturing Shopfloor in the Context of Industry 4.0

In the context of Industry 4.0, smart manufacturing shopfloors are facing the challenges of synchronizing the internal logistics and production operations by making full use the real-time status of typical production objects. This paper introduces a smart automated guided vehicle (AGV) for easing the collaborations between typical workers and robots. The smart AGV system uses state of the art technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) and wireless communication standards. A demonstrative case from a near-life scenario is presented to evaluate the feasibility and practicality of the proposed system. Some discussions are also illustrated so that typical manufacturing companies could use this system when they are contemplating the Industry 4.0 enabled solutions in the near future for improving their entire production efficiency.