According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an article transport vehicle capable of speeding up and reducing vibration in a manufacturing plant, a rail assembly, and an article transport system including the same. The article transport vehicle that conveys an article between manufacturing facilities along a rail of an article transport system in a manufacturing plant includes an article holder, a vehicle body, a magnetic levitation actuator, and a linear motor coil.

An apparatus includes a servo motor being configured to drive a traveling part for transferring an object along a traveling rail, a servo driver being configured to control an operation of the servo motor with adjusting a torque of the servo motor according to a load level, an overload determination unit being configured to check a degree of overload of the servo driver and a motion controller being configured to generate a speed signal and a speed profile according to a transfer command which a control unit of controlling an operation of the traveling part transmits thereto, the motion controller generating either a normal speed profile when the servo driver is not at an overload state or a corrected speed profile when the servo driver is at the overload state, and transmitting the speed signal and the speed profile to the servo driver.

A system, includes, a semiconductor processing unit, an Automated Materials Handling System (AMHS) vehicle, and a warehouse apparatus, wherein the warehouse apparatus comprises at least one input port, at least one output port, and at least one load/unload port, wherein the warehouse apparatus is configured to perform one of the following: receiving a plurality of tray cassette containers from the AMHS vehicle at the at least one input port, transporting at least one tray cassette in each of a plurality of tray cassette containers to the at least one load/unload port via the at least one input port, transporting at least one first tray from the at least one tray cassette to the semiconductor processing unit via a tray feeder conveyor, and receiving at least one second tray from the semiconductor processing unit via the tray feeder conveyor.

A transportation system of a cassette comprises a port and a system controller. The port accommodates a cassette carrying a glass substrate, and the port includes displacement sensors for sensing a position of a cassette. The system controller calculates a distortion amount of the cassette using sensed values of the cassette and determines if the cassette is in a normal settlement status by comparing the distortion amount with a tolerance value. Therefore, the position of the cassette can be automatically taught without clamping operation of a clamping device clamping the cassette disposed in the port, thereby preventing defects of the glass substrate by removing various defect-causing factors such as particles and static electricity that may occur during a conventional clamping operation. In particular, quality defects of OLED can be eliminated by preventing particles and static electricity that affect product quality defects in the OLED manufacturing process.

A transport system includes a plurality of transport vehicles and a controller. The transport vehicle includes a travel unit and transfer unit. The controller performs a blocking control to prohibit transport vehicles other than the transport vehicle from entering a blocking zone corresponding to the area occupied by the transport vehicle when transferring an article in a plan view. To transfer an article from/to a placement table, the transport vehicle travels along the route to the placement table in a first direction. An area of the blocking zone when the transport vehicle accesses to the placement table in the first direction is equal to or less than an area of the blocking zone identified when the transport vehicle accesses to the placement table in the second direction different from the first direction.

A suspended transport vehicle travels along a track supported by a ceiling and transfers an article to a shelf of a rack installed on a floor, the suspended transport vehicle has a driving part, a first traveling part and a second traveling part, a ceiling-side member that is suspended downwards from the first traveling part and the second traveling part and has a transferring part that transfers the article to the shelf of the rack, a floor-side member that is provided so as to be capable of relative movement with respect to the ceiling-side member and has travel rollers being contacting parts in contact with a first guide part installed on the floor, and a distance sensor that detects a relative distance between the ceiling-side member and the floor-side member.

A method for operating a conveying system is provided. An overhead hoist transport (OHT) vehicle is provided, wherein the OHT vehicle includes a gripping member configured to grip and hold a carrier, and a receiver configured to receive a signal. The signal is transmitted to the receiver of the OHT vehicle. The OHT vehicle is moved toward the carrier, and the carrier is gripped by the gripping member of the OHT vehicle. A lifting force is determined based on a weight of a carrier, a number of workpieces in the carrier, or a vertical distance between the OHT vehicle and the carrier, and the lifting force is applied to the carrier.

Wafer boat handling device, configured to be positioned under a process chamber of a vertical batch furnace, and comprising a rotatable table comprising a first and a second wafer boat support surface. Each wafer boat support surface is configured for supporting a wafer boat. The rotatable table is rotatable by an actuator to rotate both the first and the second wafer support surfaces to a load/receive position in which the wafer boat handling device is configured to load a wafer boat vertically from the rotatable table into the process chamber and to receive the wafer boat from the process chamber onto the rotatable table, a cooldown position in which the wafer boat handling device is configured to cool down a wafer boat, and a transfer position for transferring wafers to and/or from the wafer boat.

A conveyor system includes a first conveyor line to convey an article in a first direction, a second conveyor line parallel or substantially parallel with the first conveyor line to convey the article in a second direction that is a direction opposite to the first direction, a backup line parallel or substantially parallel with the first conveyor line and the second conveyor line and able to change states between a state of conveying the article in the first direction and a state of conveying the article in the second direction, first connecting lines to convey the article between the first conveyor line and the backup line, and second connecting lines to convey the article between the second conveyor line and the backup line.

A vertical batch furnace assembly for processing wafers comprising a cassette handling space, a wafer handling space, and an internal wall separating the cassette handling space and the wafer handling space. The cassette handling space is provided with a cassette storage configured to store a plurality of wafer cassettes provided with a plurality of wafers. The cassette handling space is also provided with a cassette handler configured to transfer wafer cassettes between the cassette storage and a wafer transfer position. The wafer handling space is provided with a wafer handler configured to transfer wafers between a wafer cassette in the wafer transfer position and a wafer boat in a wafer boat transfer position. The internal wall is provided with a wafer transfer opening adjacent the wafer transfer position for a wafer cassette from or to which wafers are to be transferred. The cassette storage comprises two cassette storage carousels.