Body-in-white transport system on AGVs: carrying underbodies and welded car bodies between body-shop lines, roller-bed handovers and body buffers

01

Linking a whole body shop with about 100 AGVs: 11 intersecting loops, magnetic-grid navigation and a 92-hour stand-by

KUKA's account of the body shop it linked for Mercedes-Benz in Tuscaloosa is one of the few published descriptions of an AGV fleet that carries body components and complete car bodies between body-shop lines.

The reason given for the project was safety: transport of body parts between the body-shop lines became forklift-free, and the AGVs deliver the components of each vehicle model to the right station at the right time, where they are assembled without intermediate buffers. [1] When people or obstacles enter the driving area, optical sensors make the vehicles stop and give an acoustic and optical warning, and the transport resumes only when the road is clear. [1]

The navigation choice is specific to the welding environment. KUKA states that optical sensors can be contaminated by welding dust in a body shop, and that it chose inductive magnetic-grid navigation because it is insensitive to that. [1] The same account describes a graphical interface for planning and simulating new routes, so that the link can be changed when a new model series is integrated. [1] KUKA's KMP 1500 platform, which its brochure describes as suited to the matrix body shop, takes the other route: its navigation software moves the vehicle without conventional guidance or navigation elements in the floor. [2]

For a body-shop link, give the supplier the number of body variants, the stations each variant visits, the cycle time per station, whether parts arrive just in time with no buffer, and which areas carry welding dust or spatter that could foul optical navigation.

02

What the carrier has to lift: a 400 kg body on a 150 kg skid, and lift-table platforms rated at 1,500 kg

The load on a body-shop carrier depends on whether the body travels on a skid. Eisenmann's skidless conveying patent quotes the example it set out to avoid: a vehicle body of about 400 kg conveyed on a skid of about 150 kg. [4]

Editorial calculation from the patent example: body and skid together come to about 550 kg, so the skid is about 27 % of the mass moved. [4] The patent also notes that present-day bodies already carry standardised holding plates on the floor that lock to the skid, which is what lets a carrier pick a body up by the same points with or without a skid. [4] Against a 1,500 kg rating on either carrier, the editorial margin for a 550 kg body-plus-skid is about 2.7 times; the welding fixture or locating frame that sits on the vehicle in a body shop has to be added to that figure, and neither source gives its weight.

The lift table sets the handover time. Editorial calculation: a full 200 mm stroke at the KMP 1500's maximum 50 mm/s takes at least 4 s each way. [2] The sideways speed matters as much as the straight-line one when a carrier crabs into a station: KUKA lists 0.56 m/s diagonally and sideways against 1 m/s straight ahead. [2] Eisenmann's white paper describes a 360° LiDAR protective field on its vehicle that lowers speed when an obstacle enters the detection range, so that people and vehicles share the travel paths. [3]

State the heaviest body variant, whether it travels on a skid, the mass of any fixture or frame on the vehicle, the pick-up points on the body floor, the lift height needed at each station and the positioning tolerance the welding fixture can accept.

03

Handing the body to a roller bed or parking it: transport-plane height, skid runners and AGV area storage instead of a high-bay

Where AGVs meet the existing conveyors, the body has to arrive at the height and on the runners the roller bed expects.

Eisenmann's skid patent describes the conventional arrangement: skids with two parallel support runners carry vehicle bodies between processing and treatment stations, the runners rest on roller conveyors built from parallel steel profiles with recessed, partly driven rollers, and buffer areas are provided where loaded or empty skids are parked. [5] Its transfer station places the rollers in one transport plane with the adjoining roller conveyor, given as an example 500 mm above the floor, and lets a self-propelled drive unit pass beneath it to couple to the skid; the skid's own running wheels are given as an example 200 mm in diameter. [5] Editorial note: a lift table with a 200 mm stroke, as on the KMP 1500, does not by itself reach a 500 mm transport plane, so a handover station of that height needs a raised carrier deck or a matching lift in the station. [2]

For parked bodies, Eisenmann offers an AGV area storage as the alternative to a high-bay warehouse with stacker cranes and pre-rack conveyors, which it names as the largest saving; the vehicles drive under parked bodies, so stored bodies do not block the transport aisles, and every stored body stays accessible. [3] Eisenmann presents this storage for the paint shop; in a body shop the same question is whether the buffer between lines sits in racking served by cranes or on the floor served by the carriers. KUKA's Tuscaloosa link was set up so that components reach the stations without intermediate buffers. [1]

Give the transport-plane height of each roller bed or fixture the carrier must serve, the skid runner spacing and type if skids are kept, the number of bodies to be buffered and whether the buffer may occupy floor area instead of racking.

04

Data for a body-in-white AGV transport enquiry

Paste it into your enquiry below or into an email to a maker, then replace every bracket.

Bodies: [variants; heaviest mass; with or without skid; pick-up points on the floor]
Fixtures: [locating frame or welding fixture carried on the vehicle; mass]
Stations: [list with cycle times; handover height; positioning tolerance]
Routes: [loops and crossings; aisle widths; areas with welding dust or spatter]
Navigation: [magnetic grid, reflector laser or free navigation; floor works allowed]
Buffers: [bodies to park; floor storage or racking]
Energy: [shifts; opportunity or contactless charging; stand-by over weekends]
Interfaces: [plant production control; line PLCs; safety concept with people in the area]

See manufacturer records Send an enquiry through CNFX