Autonomous Forklifts?

[Spaghetti]

"A line of automatic guided vehicles by JBT removes pallets of goods from standard, unmodified over-the-road trailers and delivers the pallets to storage locations for future retrieval and use. Using laser navigation, the vehicles provide precise load pick up and placement of pallets weighing 2,500 pounds. Up to two pallets can be removed from the trailer simultaneously using a single-double forklift attachment. For safe operation around manual fork trucks and pedestrians, the AGVs are equipped with 360-degree obstacle detection."

Product: AGV for unloading trailers - Material Handling Product News

JBT Automated Guide Vehicles - Automated / Automatic Guided Vehicle Systems (AGVs)

Ultracapacitors Give Power Lift to Automated Guided Vehicles · Environmental Management & Energy News · Environmental Leader

 

[pro1driver]

nothing really new. when i had first started trucking, i had the wonderful opportunity to have the 25¢ tour of many of the GM plants in MI. they have robotic carts that carry the engines, transmissions and exhaust systems as well as the gas tanks, meet up the the car body, lift the components up to the car and the workers bolt them in.

all that these fork lifts do, is pretty much the same thing, all the while replacing useless fork lift operators that are lazy and drop the loads at the end of the trailer, and you have to load from that. to me...if we gotta work the loads, then why have human fork lift operators..???

a great way to thin out the deadwood we must deal with.

 

[xeastend]

Exxon Mobile in Paulsboro,NJ have been using these for at least 15 years. The robots do the picking and staging on racks by the dock. Then a human loads the truck.
They follow wires in the floor

 

[Deleted member 5115]

I have a customer that makes these things. They can load and unload at least two pallets at a time in a trailer, put them in racks and pull them out. I always get the tour of the latest and greatest stuff they are putting together. One time they had the biggest forks I've seen in person, they were about 8' tall and 8' long and about 4" thick. The guy didn't know the whole story but he said that they were going onto some sort of automated fork truck. They cost less to operate than a Chinese worker.