Automated guided vehicle with intelligent clamp for paper roll handling in warehouses

Paper roll handling is mainly perfomed with manually operated forklift trucks.They typically transport rolls one by one from lorries or railway wagon and pile them in warehouses.Handling of rolls includes gripping to the roll, its transportation to the destination and finally unloading them either on the floor or top of another rolls.So far there exist no autonomous forklift trucks able to perform paper roll handling and piling in warehouses in harbours or paper mills.There exists a growing demand among paper roll manufacturers and stevedoring firms to develop paper roll handling automation in the logistic chain from the paper mill to the customer.Therefore an automated guided vehicle (AGV) with an intelligent clamp intended for paper roll handling in warehouses has been developed.The vehicle is based on a diesel-electric truck equipped with internal sensors needed in the vehicle control.Laser scanner is used as an external sensor for environment perception for finding exact location of paper rolls.