Description

The optical real-time location system from Sentics is based on infrastructure sensors that are installed in the industrial environment. The sensor system detects and locates relevant objects such as forklifts, people, machines, etc. and makes this information available for numerous applications. Through real-time analysis of the locations and movement profiles of people and vehicles, critical situations are detected at an early stage and accidents are effectively prevented through warnings and automated reduction of driving speed. By configuring the driving strategy in a targeted manner, users can also preventively reduce the driving speed in hazardous areas. Conversely, transport vehicles can continue to be operated with high productivity if there are no people or other obstacles in the driving area.

Another area of application is autonomous transport, which currently can only be operated with high restrictions on productivity due to the challenges of mixed traffic with manual vehicles and people. For the first time, the optical real-time location system from Sentics provides information about all driving areas in real time and makes this available to the fleet managers of the autonomous transport vehicles. As a result, it is now possible to react to obstacles such as pallets, manual vehicles or people at an early stage and dynamically adjust route planning. An analysis of the historical movement profiles also makes it possible to permanently increase safety and productivity.

Innovations

Real-time location systems are currently all based on additional technical devices (transponders), which have to be worn by people or installed on vehicles. Besides the high administration and maintenance costs (issuing to staff and visitors, recharging the batteries, replacing defective devices, etc.), these systems have a major disadvantage for safety applications. If a person is not wearing the transponder or if the transponder is defective, this person cannot be protected. Sentics’ real-time optical location system does not require any additional technical equipment. This means that there can occur no errors in the operation of the system. At the same time, the system is arbitrarily scalable, as there is no limitation of devices compared to transponder solutions.

Furthermore, collision protection systems based on cameras on the vehicles exist. Even though these systems offer a certain degree of protection in some situations (person directly in front of or behind the vehicle), they are characterised by significant weaknesses. People who are hidden from the view of the vehicle (e.g. behind pallets/gates/between racks, etc.) are not detected by these systems. Likewise, visibility may be restricted, e.g. if the industrial truck has lifted a load. The Sentics system covers the industrial environment from multiple perspectives and can also take into account the movement history of objects.

Market relevance

In Europe, there were over 180,000 accidents in internal transport in 2022. In addition to the personal fates of the accident victims, accidents represent a high economic loss for companies. The costs for minor accidents are on average around 30,000 €. Serious to very serious accidents can generate costs of up to 800,000 €. In many cases, there is also the threat of legal consequences and (temporary) closures of branches or the entire company may occur.

Accident statistics show that current solutions have not been able to significantly reduce the number of accidents. It is expected that in the future intralogistics will increasingly be supplemented and partly replaced by autonomous vehicles (AGV/AMR). Today’s vehicles rely on on-board sensors, which have conceptual disadvantages when operating the vehicles. People and other objects blocking the path of travel are detected late, leading to unexpected stops of the vehicles and inefficiencies in the fleet. In order to be able to efficiently use autonomous vehicles in internal transport in the future, holistic information about the status of the routes must be collected and made available to the fleet management of the vehicles. The Sentics system therefore represents a central key technology to enable the transformation to more autonomous transport in intralogistics.

Customer benefits

The Sentics system is installed once in the customer’s environment and put into operation.

No further technical devices (wearables) are required on the objects in the environment to use the system.
Software licences allow customers to use the system for numerous areas of application.
Accidents are effectively prevented through warnings and active reduction of driving speeds.
By analysing accident risks (Sentics Safty Score), safety becomes measurable for the first time. Changes in the safety situation are thus made visible and the customer is informed.
Safety can be sustainably increased by deriving measures.
The use of additional interfaces (Senstics INTI) allows the implementation of traffic regulations (e.g. traffic lights).
The Sentics Productivity Score enables an increase in the productivity and efficiency of customers. For example, the utilisation of available space or the efficiency of a fleet of forklifts can be analysed and improved.
The use of the Sentics system enables the efficient use of autonomous transport vehicles in intralogistics.
In addition, there are numerous areas of application, e.g. human-machine collaboration, automation of gates, lighting and air-conditioning and even burglary protection.