Application of a deadlock avoidance algorithm to a postal AGV system

With the rapid development of e-Commerce, logistics industry, including postal service, is more and more expanding. However, the industry is also being confronted with many problems. The amount of mail is exponentially growing and fluctuates day by day. In addition, the keen competition in the industry causes profits to be diminished. In order to solve such problems, it is inevitable to introduce flexible automation systems. A postal AGV system is one of them. In this study, out of many issues on the automated system, a deadlock avoidance algorithm for a postal AGV system was proposed. The algorithm has many advantages. First of all, the deadlock avoidance method proposed in this paper requires no additional devices, such as detours. What is more important is that the deadlock avoidance method is simple and easily adjustable even to configuration changes.