According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), each year approximately 34,900 forklift accidents occur with about 85 of those ending in death. That is 85 deaths too many, which is why Velodyne LiDAR teamed up with MechaSpin and CVEDIA at MODEX 2018 to showcase a safe alternative for companies and their employees: ForkAlert.
Equipped with the Velodyne PUCK (VLP-16) 3D LiDAR sensor, MechaSpin’s ForkAlert helps forklifts and other industrial vehicles identify and classify surrounding objects in real-time. The sophisticated Advanced Driver Awareness System (ADAS) quickly alerts the driver through a series of audible and visual alerts, providing them with 360-degree protection around the vehicle.
Velodyne’s VLP-16, colloquially termed the “Puck,” delivers 300,000 geospatial data points per second. These points are used by the ForkAlert system to map the environment and build a 3D point cloud in real-time. People, vehicles, and stationary objects are identified clearly within the mapped point cloud, providing full 360-degree awareness to the forklift operator. Velodyne’s Puck acts as an ideal robotic eye for ForkAlert, aiding the driver when vision may be limited.
Equipped with the Velodyne PUCK (VLP-16) 3D LiDAR sensor, MechaSpin’s ForkAlert helps forklifts and other industrial vehicles identify and classify surrounding objects in real-time. The sophisticated Advanced Driver Awareness System (ADAS) quickly alerts the driver through a series of audible and visual alerts, providing them with 360-degree protection around the vehicle.
Velodyne’s VLP-16, colloquially termed the “Puck,” delivers 300,000 geospatial data points per second. These points are used by the ForkAlert system to map the environment and build a 3D point cloud in real-time. People, vehicles, and stationary objects are identified clearly within the mapped point cloud, providing full 360-degree awareness to the forklift operator. Velodyne’s Puck acts as an ideal robotic eye for ForkAlert, aiding the driver when vision may be limited.
This hardware and software solution was developed by MechaSpin, a full-service robotics house specializing in Mechatronics and industrial automation. To speed up and improve development of ForkAlert, MechaSpin partnered with CVEDIA, a simulation, modeling and big data management platform for machine learning applications, to develop a robust simulation environment. The technology from CVEDIA allows MechaSpin to quickly prototype, design, develop and test ForkAlert in a large variety of environments, ensuring the ForkAlert can navigate any environment and prevent collisions.
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