Design of a large LCD panel handling air conveyor with minimum air consumption

The area of flat glass panel displays such as liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma display panel (PDP) has been increased more than 2 × 2 m2 for productivity improvement. However, such a large panel area induces a large panel deflection during panel transfer using robots or automated guided vehicle (AGV) 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 possible 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. The air flow model between the LCD glass panel and the 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 conveyor with the air slit and that with the porous pad were compared.