Simplified Automated Material Handling System: Magnetic Wheels based Overhead Transportation Concept

Automation in various forms constitutes the backbone of most major industries. An increase in production volume, product variety and manufacturing process complexity necessitates automation to ensure consistency and profitable production. Automated material handling becomes a crucial aspect of factory automation because it frees up manual labor, streamlines the flow of material, allows for complexity management, reduces work in progress (WIP) and improves the utilization of expensive equipment. Existing material handling solutions typically cater to specific industries and can also be exorbitantly expensive. There is an emerging need for affordable automated material handling in smaller industries, and in hitherto unconventional settings like homes, offices and hospitals. The keys for an automation technology that can meet the widespread demands of such varied customers are simplicity, flexibility and integrability. With this in mind, we present a very simple yet versatile material transportation concept. We propose an overhead ceiling-based trackless transportation system that uses vehicles with magnetic wheels. The concept is developed following the principles of deterministic mechatronic design. Due to its inherent simplicity and judging from its extremely wide applicability, we propose an 'open hardware' environment so that the concept can be developed in a manner similar to the Linux Operating System. Introduction and Background Automation is becoming a growing need across various industries. It has assumed significant levels to meet the trends of everincreasing production volume and product variety. At the same time, products have become more and more sophisticated and hence demand complex and multiple-stage manufacturing processes. Added to these challenges is the pressing need to maintain high profitability, which in turn requires high yields, lower lead times and improved equipment utilization. In such a scenario, automated material transportation becomes a crucial aspect of factory automation because it frees up manual labor, streamlines the production processes, allows for complexity management, reduces inventory and improves the payback on expensive equipment before they become obsolete. Manual operations can go only so far, beyond which it becomes impossible to make any further improvements in the productivity and profits. Furthermore, ergonomic as well as labor considerations limit the indiscriminate use of manual force. Consequently, as they grow in size many industries tend to seek simple and efficient material handling (MH) solutions. 1 Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Precision Engineering Research Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2 Doctoral Candidate, Precision Engineering Research Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology