Traffic control - network nodes and AGV path

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Lucas Klein asked Aug 29, '19 Joseph Gillespie commented Sep 6, '19

Traffic control - network nodes and AGV path

Dear all,

Is there a way to check collision such as the traffic controller does, stopping the task executers, when using NetworkNodes and AGV paths that intercept each other?

In addition to collision checking with TaskExecuter and AGVs, it would be necessary to check the collision with the boxes loaded as trailers in the AGV and also the collision between AGVs in different paths.

Follow attached a model where all these collisions don't happen, I know that is not the default of the FlexSim to check that but if there is any way to check it, it would help a lot.

Thanks in advance.

collision-model.fsm

Software Version:

FlexSim 19.1.1

agv path collision multiple paths

collision-model.fsm (145.7 KiB)

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Joseph Gillespie commented · Aug 30, 2019 at 05:31 PM

@Lucas Klein

Where the NetworksNodes and the AGV paths cross, would you like to give priority to the AGV or the Forklift? Or should they have equal priority?

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Answer 1 · 2019-08-30T18:56:10Z

Joseph Gillespie answered Aug 30, '19 Joseph Gillespie commented Sep 6, '19

@Lucas Klein

Here's an updated version of your model that I think does what you are looking for: collisionmodelanswer.fsm

To solve the problem of AGVs colliding with each other, I simply added in some Control Areas around the AGV intersections. These limit the number of AGVs within them, so by setting the limit to 1, all collisions in the intersections can be prevented.

As for the Forklift colliding with an AGV, I used a solution from a previous FlexSim post: AGV / Operator Collision Prevention

This solution uses TrafficControl objects and AGV Waypoints to cause the AGV to stop whenever the Forklift is crossing the path in front of it. I also moved and added a few control points to get it to work.

I didn't add in an explicit solution for stopping anything from colliding with the boxes, but as you will be able to see from the model, nothing does collide with them. If you want to add more functionality to prevent anything from colliding with the boxes, this could be done with Process Flow and by treating the intersections as resources.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions about the solutions used here.

collisionmodelanswer.fsm (148.7 KiB)

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Attachments: Up to 12 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 23.8 MiB each and 47.7 MiB total.

Lucas Klein commented · Sep 02, 2019 at 02:37 PM

Thank you, @Joseph Gillespie!

It solved my problem to handle collisions between different types of TEs.

Just in case, you asked me about the priority of the Forklift and the AGV, if I wanted to stop the forklift instead the AGV, or stop both keeping in movement the first to enter the collision area, how could I handle it?

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Joseph Gillespie Lucas Klein commented · Sep 04, 2019 at 09:51 PM

@Lucas Klein

If you wanted to handle the collisions with a different priority you would have to change your model pretty significantly. One option would be to convert the Forklift into an AGV and use control areas or convert the AGVs into Transporters and use Traffic Control.

Another option would be to stop using the pre-made AGV Process Flow and create Process Flows for the Forklift and the AGV that crosses the Forklift's path. Then you could treat each intersection as a resource and have the Forklift and the AGV that crosses its path acquire the intersection before crossing.

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Lucas Klein Joseph Gillespie commented · Sep 05, 2019 at 10:55 PM

Thanks again @Joseph Gillespie.

Here is a quick model that I built using the resource method. If you have any comments ou suggestions that might help to improve the model it will be very good.

crossing-paths.fsm

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crossing-paths.fsm (39.0 KiB)

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