Abstract: An installation for vehicles moving automatically, without human intervention, between starting and arrival points along a predetermined path consisting of stops, junctions, crossings, inlets, outlets of elevators, etc.An installation in which each self-propelling vehicle is adapted to carry a load and has steering-wheels and a central driving-wheel as well as optical detectors designed to read an optical track laid out on the ground and furnishing passive driving signals, the vehicle also being provided with an ultrasonic emitter-receiver assembly working as a radar and operative to detect obstacles along the path of movement of the vehicle.

Abstract: A control for a variable reluctance motor, comprising a d.c. source, a power control circuit, and a command circuit, in which the power control circuit comprises main control switches in series with the windings of the motor to form terminal branches, the terminal branches being connected in groups of two in series between the two poles of the source in such a way that two complementary windings are never in series, as well as free-wheel branches to close the circuit of each winding when at most one main control switch in a branch is conducting, and a turn-off circuit for the main control switches, and including at least one current detector to register the current in the windings; each free-wheel branch includes a coil and a diode, the diode polarized to oppose normal current flow through its associated main control switch.

Abstract: This invention is relative at a position coder used with a variable reluctance machine to control the commutations of the stator windings on this machine, said coder being characterized by having magnetic circuits for its rotor and its stator which are identical to those on the variable reluctance machine and which are set in an identical manner.