The Autonomous Forklift sees Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD’s hardware paired with Cyngn’s DriveMod automated and AI-based system.
public highways. That, and the expected economies of scale as automotive sensors proliferate makes a stronger business case than lower-volume industrial equivalents. “Long term, you’re much better sitting on those automotive sensors than industrial sensors that are fragmented and tend to stay very expensive, because they don’t win a ten-million-unit-a-year opportunity with Volkswagen,” explains Landen, whose background is in automotive. The system uses 3D lidar sensors to manoeuvre down to what Landen claims is “centimeter accuracy” and absorbs data across the length and breadth of the vehicle. This is allegedly more advanced than 2D lidar systems, which are said to have a limited scope of observation. “I had a customer tell me, ‘I was doing a demo, I pointed to somebody, and a bot zipped by and hit me in the arm,’” says Landen. “That’s because it’s only looking at knee height for what it should or shouldn’t run into.”
FOXBOT Austin, Texas-based Fox Robotics produces an autonomous forklift known as the FoxBot, which is said to be capable of unloading 25 pallets an hour. Based on what the company describes as a “standard
counterbalance, stand-up forklift”, it is fitted with a camera system between the forks, which perceives depth and serves as an aid to the pallet detection technology which, in turn, can distinguish the type of pallet and the direction it is facing. It also includes three micro scan lidar systems – two adjacent to the forks and one at the rear of the truck next to its steering gear, said to In an interview with the BBC, the company’s co-founder, Peter Anderson- Sprecher, says: “It’s really easy to be able to build a robot that works once. Building a robot that works every single time, day-in, day-out… [and] figuring out how to both meet the workflow needs that customers have, and… be compliant with all the required standards, is a real challenge for introducing any kind of new autonomous system into a workplace.” According to Landen, warehouse
operators are not short of options if the loads in question are relatively light by industrial standards and the pallets are a conventional size, but there are fewer options for heavier cargo and pallets that deviate from the norm. “If you’re a forklift operator and you
said, ‘I’d really like to start looking into automating my forklift work,’ you’re going
Fox Robotics’ Peter Anderson-Sprecher. Overhead Crane Material Handling Industry Supplement | November 2023 | xv
Ben Landen of Cyngn.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83
