Abstract
The area of flat glass panel displays such as LCD (Liquid crystal display) and PDP (Plasma display panel) has been increased more than 2 $\times$ 2 m$^2$ for productivity improvement. However, such a large panel area incurs large panel deflection during panel transfer using robots or AGV (Automated guided vehicle) systems. Therefore, electronic industries are making an effort to find an alternative transfer system for the large glass panels with small deflection. The air conveyor with porous pads is one plausible solution, but it becomes expensive because the large porous pads cost much and air consumption increases as the panel area increases. In this work, a simple air slit levitating conveyor was devised to lower the equipment cost and to reduce the air consumption of system. The air flow model between the LCD glass panel and conveyor was constructed and its validity was verified by experiments. To minimize the air consumption, the conveyor dimensions were optimized, and the air consumptions between the air conveyors with the air slit and that with the porous pad were compared.
