Patent ID: 8751060

Claim:
A traveling vehicle system comprising: a plurality of traveling vehicles; a travel route including at least one diverging section and at least one merging section; and at least one controller; wherein the traveling vehicles are arranged to travel along the travel route under control of the at least one controller; each of the plurality of traveling vehicles includes a first traveling vehicle position determining section arranged to determine a position of the respective traveling vehicle, a second traveling vehicle position determining section arranged to determine a position of at least one other of the traveling vehicles by communication, and a distance sensor arranged to detect a distance between the respective traveling vehicle and the at least one other of the traveling vehicles; an inter-vehicle distance control area in the travel route includes a blocking area, an entrance of a diverging section, an exit of a diverging lane of the diverging section, a curved entrance to the merging section, an exit from the merging section, and a curved segment; the blocking area includes the diverging section and the merging section; the at least one controller and the traveling vehicles are configured to control velocities of the traveling vehicles in the inter-vehicle distance control area by determining inter-vehicle distances between the traveling vehicles based on the position of the at least one other of the traveling vehicles obtained by the communication in the second traveling vehicle position determining section, and the position of the respective traveling vehicle determined by the first traveling vehicle position determining section, and to enter the blocking area after obtaining permissions from the controller; in areas of the travel route other than in the inter-vehicle distance control area, each of the plurality of traveling vehicles controls its own velocity based on distances detected by the distance sensor instead of the position of the at least one other of the traveling vehicles obtained by communication; a length of the blocking area is substantially equal to a length of a vehicle body of at least one of the plurality of traveling vehicles; and the length of the blocking area represents a minimum distance for avoiding interference between the traveling vehicles.