Recently, the Japanese government recently decided to discharge the nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the sea, which has aroused widespread concern. South Korea, China and other neighboring countries have expressed strong opposition to this. After all, nuclear radiation pollution will continue for decades or even a century. The sea belongs to all mankind, and the Fukushima nuclear accident is a man-made disaster. Japan’s mistakes should not be paid for by the world.（Click to share to LinkedIn)

Carefully sort out the whole story of Japan’s nuclear contaminated water incident. This “nuclear” water disaster began with the magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan on March 11, 2011. The earthquake caused a catastrophic nuclear leak at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Chernobyl" is the same level. After 10 years of accumulation, the amount of nuclear contaminated water has reached at least 1.25 million tons. If discharged, 57 days can abolish half of the Pacific Ocean, and 10 years will spread to the world's oceans.

The main sources of Fukushima nuclear sewage are cooling water and contaminated groundwater. After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011, the reactor core still had huge decay heat, and it needed to be continuously injected with water to cool the reactor down. This contaminated cooling water is one of the main sources of nuclear sewage.

The main source of subsequent nuclear sewage is mostly groundwater. The Fukushima nuclear power plant is near the sea and the terrain is low. Groundwater and rainwater flow into the reactor where the accident occurred day after day, so more and more groundwater is polluted. These cooling water and contaminated groundwater are stored in the water storage tank of the Fukushima nuclear power plant by the Japanese government. You can see thousands of densely packed circular nuclear sewage storage tanks placed in the nuclear power plant area.

Nuclear power plants are accumulating more and more nuclear sewage. The approximately 1,000 storage tanks previously prepared are now 90% full. It is expected that by the autumn of 2022, the storage capacity of these storage tanks will reach their limit. So Japan decided without authorization to throw this "hot potato" into the ocean and let the world pay for it.（Click to share to Facebook）

In fact, when the Fukushima nuclear accident first occurred, the accident level was only level 4. The accident level was changed to level 7 due to the failure of the nuclear power plant to handle it in time and report it in time, and the delay in the post-event treatment plan. At that time, Japan did not formulate a scientific emergency plan for the first time, nor did it send enough personnel to deal with nuclear pollution. When the Chernobyl accident, which was also a level 7 accident, the Soviet Union sent chemical troops to deal with it, and gathered about 250,000 people for accident disposal and pollution clean-up work. A total of 240,000 people participated in Chernobyl in two years. Accident rescue.

If that year, when the Fukushima accident occurred in Japan, the intelligent robot AGV had been widely used, perhaps Japan could put a large number of AGVs that were not afraid of nuclear radiation into nuclear power plants to process waste and clean up pollution, perhaps nuclear pollution would be greatly reduced.

What is AGV?

AGV is a transport vehicle equipped with electromagnetic or optical automatic navigation devices that can travel along a prescribed navigation path, with safety protection and various transfer functions. In industrial applications, the driver’s truck is not required, and rechargeable batteries are used as its power source. Generally, its travel path and behavior can be controlled by a computer, or an electromagnetic path-following system can be used to set up its travel path. The electromagnetic track is glued to the floor, and the unmanned vehicle relies on the information brought by the electromagnetic track. Move and move.

AGV is widely used in many fields such as manufacturing, warehousing, post offices, libraries, ports, airports, tobacco, medicine, food, chemicals, hazardous locations and special industries.

In the military, based on AGV's automatic driving, it integrates other detection and disassembly equipment, which can be used for battlefield demining and position reconnaissance. The MINDER Recce, which is being developed by the British military, is a reconnaissance vehicle with mine detection, destruction and route verification capabilities. Automatic reconnaissance vehicle. In steel plants, AGV is used for charge transportation, reducing the labor intensity of workers. In nuclear power plants and places where nuclear radiation is used for preservation and storage, AGVs are used for the transportation of goods to avoid dangerous radiation. In the film and film warehouse, AGV can accurately and reliably transport materials and semi-finished products in a dark environment.

AGV Industry Chain

AGV is a type of industrial robot, and has an industrial chain structure similar to industrial robots. Upstream is the manufacturer of robot parts. This part is the core of the industrial chain and occupies most of the cost of robot products. Midstream is a robot manufacturing and system integration enterprise. The downstream includes automotive, 3C electronics, logistics, tobacco manufacturing, 3C electronics and other application industries.

From the perspective of product composition, AGV mainly includes two parts: basic hardware and control system. The control system includes master control, on-board controller, and navigation. The basic hardware includes car body module, power module, drive module, and peripheral equipment.

The cost composition of AGV products includes direct material costs, labor costs, manufacturing costs and other related costs. Material costs include reducers, electronic components, housing materials, software systems, etc., which are the main costs of AGV products, accounting for nearly 80%.

AGV market analysis

In 2019, China's mobile robot (AGV) market reached 6.175 billion yuan (including industrial AMR), a year-on-year increase of 45.29%. From 2014 to 2019, the compound growth rate of China's mobile robot (AGV) market was 54.56%, and the growth rate in recent years The improvement also reflects that my country's manufacturing industry has achieved considerable results in the process of intelligent development.

Beginning in 2016, the growth rate of new additions of mobile robots (AGV) has increased significantly. As of 2019, all categories of AGV robots have added 33,400 units, a year-on-year increase of 12.84%. From 2014 to 2019, the compound growth rate of new mobile robots (AGV) in China was 59.85%.

At present, the application of AGV robots in China is mainly concentrated in the fields of manufacturing, logistics and transportation and inspection. The automobile industry, home appliance manufacturing and other fields are currently the main demand markets for domestic AGVs. The two major industries have stable demand for AGV, but the requirements for intelligent automation of products are getting higher and higher.

However, from the perspective of the development trends of the top three application fields, the scale of production and sales of China's automobile manufacturing has begun to decline. Although the increase in AGV penetration is conducive to increasing the market size of AGVs in the automotive industry, it is affected by the new market space of the automotive industry. The future development prospects of AGV robots in the automotive industry are weaker than those in the home appliance manufacturing and logistics industries.

Advantages of AGV

1. High degree of automation

It is controlled by computer, electric control equipment, magnetic induction sensor, laser reflector, etc. suntech AGV adopts laser control, which is safe, controllable and highly intelligent.

When auxiliary materials are needed in a certain part of the workshop, the staff enters relevant information into the computer terminal, and the computer terminal sends the information to the central control room. Professional technicians issue instructions to the computer. With the cooperation of electronic control equipment, this The instruction was finally accepted and executed by the AGV-sending the auxiliary materials to the corresponding place.

2. Charging automation

When the power of the AGV car is about to run out, it will send a request instruction to the system to request charging (general technicians will set a value in advance), and automatically go to the charging place after the system allows it to "queue" for charging.

In addition, the battery life of the AGV trolley is very long (more than 2 years), and it can work for about 4 hours per 15 minutes of charging. suntech AGV is powered by a lithium battery, which takes longer to charge.

3. Improve corporate image

AGV is beautiful and can be viewed highly, thereby enhancing the image of the enterprise.

4. Convenient and reduce floor space

The AGV trolley in the production workshop can shuttle back and forth in each workshop.

Application case of AGV

1. The application of AGV in the clothing warehousing industry

The AGV produced by Suntech has been successfully applied to major textile companies for material transportation in storage workshops, greatly improving the efficiency of textile storage, saving 70% of labor, and reducing production costs by 30%.

AGV can load large-volume cargo, quickly transport it, avoid obstacles, and smoothly deliver the cargo to the designated location for loading and shipment. AGV successfully solved the Tmall logistics problem during Double Eleven. A clothing company that purchased suntech AGV successfully shipped tens of thousands of pieces during Double Eleven. The shipment speed has increased by half compared with the previous period, and the customer service complaint rate has dropped by 60%. The word-of-mouth praise rate increased by 40%, sales volume increased by 50%, and user stickiness increased. After Double Eleven, the repurchase rate increased by 30%. Many customers expressed their willingness to repurchase and actively participate in the company's follow-up preferential activities.

The company's sales have increased significantly, with sales exceeding 100 million yuan, and successfully obtained Series B financing. As the company's brand awareness has gradually increased, product shipments have increased significantly, and the textile materials in the warehouse need to be frequently transported to the production workshop. Therefore, the company has purchased several AGVs for clothing storage and transportation.

2. The application of AGV in the whole machine factory

Many complete machine factories have purchased Suntech AGV, which has outstanding application effects, greatly improving the work efficiency of complete machine factories and reducing the operation error rate by 30%.

Suntech AGV is directly synchronized with the position of the body to be installed, avoiding position errors caused by spreader installation, process chain pitch matching, etc., and can respond in time to problems such as catenary crawling. It is currently the most effective synchronization. Tracking method. Since the tracking synchronization is done by the AGV body for independent sampling, even in the manual offline state of the AGV, it can still complete the dynamic synchronization assembly work, so it has more overall flexibility.

The AGV is accurately positioned and automatically assembled with the body of the spreader, and the components are connected by manual fixing bolts, which greatly reduces the labor intensity of the personnel and improves the assembly quality and efficiency.

In the process of assembling the engine and rear axle on the chassis of the automobile final assembly line, the AGV plays a huge role in the lifting of the chassis due to the large mass and volume of the engine and rear axle parts. The AGV system can interact with the manufacturing execution system to realize functions such as error prevention and traceability.

AGV is used not only as an unmanned automatic handling vehicle in the subassembly system, but also as a movable assembly table and processing table. According to the changes in the production process, the assembly line layout is independently and randomly modified to realize the mixed flow production of multiple types of engines. The interaction of the entire information flow is formed, which greatly improves the engine's informatization, flexibility, and intelligent assembly level.

When the AGV works, it also collects a lot of information for the automobile manufacturing industry to conduct big data analysis and decision-making, achieve quality traceability and improve product yield. For complete machine factories pursuing efficiency and quality, Suntech AGV is undoubtedly the best assembly solution.

3. Application of AGV in auto parts factory

The auto parts industry is a traditional manufacturing industry. The supply of on-line materials on its production lines requires personnel to dispatch and handle. In recent years, AGV handling instead of manual handling has been widely used in these handling scenarios. The main application scenario is the transfer of materials within the factory, such as transferring materials from the raw material warehouse to the edge of the production line, transferring the empty racks of the production line to the feeding area, or transferring the finished products on the production line to the finished product warehouse.

After a traditional auto parts factory introduced Suntech AGV, it realized the auto parts factory's internal logistics automation, which made the transportation of materials and products faster and more efficient, and maximized the efficiency of personnel and equipment. AGV can accelerate according to production needs, promote the automatic distribution of parts, greatly reduce the wrong material and cargo damage caused by human intervention, and also greatly reduce the line caused by unbalanced pulling (more delivery, less delivery, early delivery, late delivery) The risk of material congestion or lack of material at the side station. The efficiency of logistics operations has been greatly improved.

The auto parts factory was directly upgraded to an intelligent auto parts company, successfully realizing the transformation of the industry, greatly improving customer favorability, establishing a reputation and brand image, and thus obtaining A round of financing.

How does the AGV storage robot move materials the fastest?

1. Material unit capacity

Before specifying an automatic material handling plan, we must first analyze what kind of container should be used to carry the material that needs to be moved, such as bins, pallets, cages, and so on. The selection of material units usually considers the process requirements, considers the combination of handling efficiency, and makes a balance from it.

2. Reasonably plan the handling distance

Imagine if we order a takeaway and want to have a meal quickly, how would you choose? If you don't think about what you want to eat, everyone will give priority to choosing a closer one. The same is true for material handling. If you want the AGV warehousing robot to complete the handling task as soon as possible, of course, the closer the handling points are, the better. This is a work that needs to be planned in the early stage. On the premise of satisfying the reasonable placement of equipment and process requirements, try to shorten the distance between the materials to be transported and arrange them reasonably.

3. Transport in advance

For intelligent handling, we can move the materials to be used to a reasonable location in advance, so that when the materials are needed, the AGV storage robot can provide them from the side immediately, which greatly reduces the response time and does not need to be changed every time. Move it over from a distant location.

4. Single batch handling

In order to make the handling more efficient, the AGV storage robot can simultaneously handle multiple material units at a time, using pallets to stack each other, multiple loading mechanisms, or dragging. Single batch handling improves efficiency.

5. Reasonably choose AGV storage robots

As the use of intelligent robots becomes more and more widespread, manufacturers continue to introduce new ones, and different forms of new handling robots appear one after another, and each type of robot has its own suitable scene and purpose. Choose according to actual needs. Make the system more efficient under the premise of stable operation.

6. Reasonably plan the path

It can be seen from the scene where AGV storage robots are applied that multiple AGVs often encounter mutual influence when carrying out material handling, causing congestion. Therefore, the path planning in the early stage of the project is very important. Good path planning can reduce the risk of mutual blockage of multiple AGVs, make the system smoother and more efficient in handling.

Suntech AGV

Suntech focuses on the R&D and production of industrial-grade mobile robots, and has achieved full coverage of independent research and development of core technologies such as robot positioning algorithms, operating systems, and controllers. It can provide personalized AGV solutions according to customer needs, including forklift AGVs, rollers Type AGV, two-way backpack AGV-1.5T, two-way backpack AGV-3.5T.

1. Forklift AGV

The AGV is a forklift type structure with light weight and large load. It adopts the latest electronic control system, which makes the whole vehicle more controllable and reliable in the whole series of processes of design, production, operation and maintenance.

2. Drum AGV

The AGV is mainly used in automated logistics conveyor lines in an industrial environment to complete the handling of goods between stations and stations, and between stations and warehouses. It is an important part of the future Industry 4.0 smart factory and can replace manual logistics. The complicated, difficult, dangerous and repetitive tasks encountered in the system.

The AGV is composed of a two-wheel differential sports chassis and a cargo business module. It is equipped with the latest hardware platform and software system, and realizes cargo handling based on autonomous navigation technology and sports chassis technology.

3. Two-way backpack AGV-1.5T

The AGV contains two parts: hardware and software. Main function: Realize the automatic docking and handling of materials in the automatic threading production line of the texturing workshop.

The AGV is a non-standard customized knapsack AGV. The automatic threading AGV part of the texturing workshop is composed of the AGV central management system and the non-standard customized unit loaded on the AGV. At the same time, the non-standard customized unit loaded on the AGV is composed of mechanical structure and electric The actuator, pneumatic actuator and other components.

4. Two-way backpack AGV-3.5T

The AGV contains two parts: hardware and software. Main function: to realize the automatic docking and handling of materials on the automatic silk production line in the texturing workshop.

The AGV is a non-standard customized backpack AGV. The automatic threading AGV part of the texturing workshop is composed of the AGV central management system and the non-standard customized unit mounted on the AGV. At the same time, the non-standard customized unit mounted on the AGV is composed of mechanical structure and electric The actuator, pneumatic actuator and other components.

Suntech has 50 years of technical precipitation and design experience, with the "precision and intelligent manufacturing" standard, the AGV developed and produced is light in weight and heavy in load. It adopts intelligent electronic control system, interactive interface and safety system to keep abreast of the AGV operation dynamics and encounter obstacles. Automatic avoidance, safe and controllable, lithium battery power supply, online automatic fast charging, laser guidance, support for manual driving or wireless control, suitable for various transportation scenarios, and help the development of the storage and transportation industry.