Patent ID: 7711446

Claim:
A transport apparatus, comprising: at least one rail that extends past a plurality of article transfer stations and that has a first end and a second end; a plurality of article transporting vehicles that travel back and forth on and share the rail; a position sensor that is fixed, at each of the first end and the second end, with respect to a floor and detects a position of each of the plurality of article transporting vehicles on the rail; an electric motor configured to control the article transporting vehicle provided on each of the article transporting vehicles; an inverter configured to control power to the electric motor; an inverter control portion configured to control the inverter provided on each of the article transporting vehicles; a ground-side controller that is fixed with respect to a floor, that is signally connected to the position sensor, and that generates a first control signal based on a detection result from the position sensor in order to manage the movement of the plurality of article transporting vehicles; a signal transmission device, provided between the ground-side controller and the inverter control portion, configured to transmit the first control signal from the first controller to the inverter control portion; a vehicle distance sensor provided on at least one of a pair of article transporting vehicles adjacent each other on the rail, the vehicle distance sensor configured to detect a vehicle-to-vehicle distance to the other article transporting vehicle adjacent thereto; an onboard controller provided on each of the article transporting vehicles, said onboard controller having a direct signal transmission device configured to direct information communication with the onboard controller provided on a further article transporting vehicle adjacent thereto, said onboard controller generating second control information which is independent from the management by the ground-side controller, in accordance with at least one of a relative vehicle-to-vehicle distance and a relative speed calculated based on the vehicle-to-vehicle distance; and a second signal transmission device provided between the onboard controller and the inverter control portion configured to transmit a second control signal to the inverter control portion, wherein in collision avoid control, said second control signal overrides said first control signal.