Volvo Group: Automated Missing Parts Shifting System
June 2019 - September 2019, Volvo Group
I was hired as a mechanical engineering innovation summer intern for Volvo group stationed at the Mack truck manufacturing plant at Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. I was tasked with finding a problem area in the plant and come up with an innovative solution to help solve the issue. My project was called AMPS, which stands for Automated Missing Parts Shifting, an automated tote delivery mechanism for materials in the plant using an automated guided vehicle (AGV). It has 4 major subsystems:
Mechanical Component
Virtual Component
Web Application Component
IoT and Sensor Component
Video Overview of Project:
Mechanical System:
I developed a simple automated tote pick up mechanism that involved a frame which would be at a designated pick up point, a mount that attaches to the AGV and the tote resting on a plate. The mechanism is illustrated in the animation below
These mounts were then manufactured using a pipe and joint system made of Stainless Steel and was then mounted on the AGV as shown below:
Virtual Component:
In the virtual component, using Unity, a cross platform game engine, I was able to replicate the entire motion that the AGV would perform in the plant virtually by importing CAD data of the plant as well as other components within the plant. I was also able to simulate the working of the mechanism virtually.
Web Application Component
A webpage was created to populate material request entries made and to keep track of them. Once the tote is ready to be delivered, the app is used to click start and trigger the AGV to go pick up the tote from a waiting point and deliver it to the destination. Here is the link to the web application that was put together by a web developer on the team.
IoT and Sensor Component
In this system, I used a load cell connected to an ESP8266 in order to detect when a tote has been picked up (and delivered) based on whether the sensor reads a high (or low). The ESP8266 then posts this data to the website directly as a JSON through the WiFi module on the microcontroller and this signal is used to change the status field on the web application.
