AI-Enabled Forklift: Protecting the Equipment, Worker and Facility Assets
The AI-enabled forklift is fast becoming the extra set of ‘eyes’ that can see the potential dangers within the forklift’s path. These dangers are both physical damages to the equipment and facility and human injuries and/or fatalities. There are costs associated with each of these areas estimating at around $150,000 in damages per facility per year and $188,000 in costs associated with a single person’s injury or fatality. Can the AI-enabled forklift reduce or maybe eliminate these costs?
What is an AI-Enabled Forklift?
An AI-enabled forklift applies AI vision technology along with machine learning to ‘watch’ in the direction the forklift is moving, in order to analyze the incoming data and make a decision to warn the driver when a person or object is within a high risk or dangerous distance.
Where Did Some Technologies Start?
There have been technologies over the years to help reduce accidents. One technology that had an impact was RFID. While it has the potential to help, risk factors still applied. One risk factor was that all workers have a wearable device, which needs to be recognized by the equipment attached to poles or racking systems in the facility in order to ‘notice’ that a person was present which then notifies the forklift operator. Plenty of areas that could go wrong. In addition, the facility would not be fully equipped with the technology, most often, only the high traffic areas were protected.
What Difference Does AI Make in Safety?
Here’s the way SIERA.AI has approached forklift safety with its AI-enabled forklift safety system. Our AI cameras begin their work by scanning every 60ms specifically searching for anything within the pre-defined path. Pre-defined path meaning you want the driver to get the warning X amount of feet away. This can be 5’, 17’ all the way up to 33’. Once the AI camera finds an obstacle in its path, that information goes into the processor and defines if that obstacle is a person or an object. When it makes that determination, the result goes to the display on the screen located on the forklift.
What’s the Warning?
If the AI machine learning has determined it is a human, then on the screen it will begin to flash a symbol of a human along with an audio alarm. If the obstacle is a box, broom, or any object, then the warning will be a symbol of a box along with the audio alarm. These determinations are vitally important for the forklift operator.
Let’s say for instance, there’s a stack of product on the ground. The forklift operator may want to move those pallets or boxes in order to clear the aisleway. But what if there’s a worker behind those boxes bending down or even on all fours and all that is visible is a shoe or hair. That worker behind the product is at high risk to get hurt.
The AI-enabled forklift will have determined that there’s a human behind the objects and warn the driver with the human symbol first. A critical component of forklift safety.
Collection of Data
As the AI-enabled forklift moves about the facility, it is collecting and transmitting data back to a telemetry Dashboard. The data collected can then be analyzed in order to determine unsafe areas within the facility. This is done through our easy to read Dashboard. Quickly find how many pedestrians and objects were detected, and how many near misses occurred.
Contact Us!
Contact us today at sales@siera.ai or call us at (512) 817 0702.