The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
He replaces Loren Swakow, the company’s president for the past eight years, who built a reputation for providing innovative and high-performance material handling solutions, Noblelift North America said.
Pedriana had previously served as chief marketing officer at Big Joe Forklifts, where he led the development of products like the Joey series of access vehicles and their cobot pallet truck concept.
According to the company, Noblelift North America sells its material handling equipment in more than 100 countries, including a catalog of products such as electric pallet trucks, sit-down forklifts, rough terrain forklifts, narrow aisle forklifts, walkie-stackers, order pickers, electric pallet trucks, scissor lifts, tuggers/tow tractors, scrubbers, sweepers, automated guided vehicles (AGV’s), lift tables, and manual pallet jacks.
"As part of Noblelift’s focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences, we are excited to have Bill Pedriana join us in this pivotal leadership role," Wendy Mao, CEO at Noblelift Intelligent Equipment Co. Ltd., the China-based parent company of Noblelift North America, said in a release. “His passion for the industry, proven ability to execute innovative strategies, and dedication to customer satisfaction make him the perfect leader to guide Noblelift into our next phase of growth.”
Picture a busy DC, with manually operated forklifts, people, and pallets in constant motion. At the same time, the stationary equipment they interact with, such as conveyors and palletizers, is industriously whirring away. Together, they are performing something akin to a carefully choreographed ballet.
Now add driverless forklifts to the mix. Shuttling along without a human operator on board, they may look like they’re operating independently, but they’re not. They’re actually in constant contact with other equipment and software, making sure they perform their part in the dance at the right moment. Without that ability to communicate, the forklifts—and other warehouse operations—could come to a standstill.
Who, exactly, are driverless forklifts “talking” to, what information are they sharing, and how does that exchange happen? We asked automation experts to explain. They also shared tips on ensuring successful communication between automated lift trucks and other equipment and software.
TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION
Lift trucks that do their jobs without a human operator on board cannot “speak” directly to each other. “As it stands now, there is no peer-to-peer communication or interaction on a forklift-to-forklift basis,” notes David Griffin, chief sales officer for Seegrid, a developer of autonomous lift trucks and AMRs (autonomous mobile robots). There is, however, interaction between forklifts via a centralized fleet manager system (also referred to as a traffic management system or an automation server). This “overarching conductor of the automated system” assigns tasks to each forklift, controls the route the trucks will follow, and manages traffic flow, says Nick McClurg, a sales engineer at forklift maker Hyster Co.
The forklifts communicate with many kinds of material handling equipment, such as robotic palletizers and depalletizers, stretch wrappers, conveyors, automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS), and dock equipment. That communication must be bidirectional, says Michael Marcum, senior director of autonomous vehicles at systems integrator Bastian Solutions, a Toyota Automated Solutions company that also makes robotic forklifts. Much of the exchange consists of messages that indicate status—whether or not the two pieces of equipment involved are ready to conduct a transaction. For example, if a forklift will be delivering a pallet to a stretch wrapper, then the wrapper has to tell that forklift, via the fleet manager system, that the load position is empty and the forklift is allowed to set a payload there, Marcum explains. After a pallet has been wrapped, the stretch wrapper will call for a pickup via the fleet manager. Once the forklift picks up the wrapped pallet, it must confirm to the stretch wrapper that it has departed; without that signal, the wrapper cannot receive its next load.
If a truck is not ready for an assigned task, it signals that status to the fleet manager, and the task will be reassigned to another nearby vehicle, says Jayce Nelson, sales manager, North America, for Kion Group’s Linde Automated Solutions, a specialist in automated forklifts and software. When the assigned forklift is ready to approach, say, the end of a conveyor to pick up a load, it uses its vision systems, such as 3D cameras, to align itself with the equipment.
With their control software, robotic forklifts also have the ability to communicate with other warehouse equipment, like fire-detection systems and automated rollup doors. “If a device is capable of sending or receiving electrical signals, then the vehicle can interact with that device via the automation host software,” McClurg says. Even a piece of mechanical equipment could be outfitted with sensors that help it interact with automated forklifts, according to Brian Markison, director of sales for Rocrich AGV Solutions, a joint venture of Mitsubishi Logisnext’s Rocla and Jungheinrich units that specializes in automated guided vehicles.
The capability to communicate with different types of devices enhances warehouse safety, Griffin says, because it enables automated forklifts to talk to safety equipment like pedestrian warning lights and intersection gates. And since the robots constantly transmit their location, the traffic control system can identify developing problems and prevent them. For example, the system will stop an autonomous forklift from entering an intersection that’s occupied by another lift truck. Once the other truck has moved on, the system will give the approaching forklift the “all clear,” he says.
Hardware isn’t the only thing driverless forklifts can talk to; they also are in continual dialogue with various types of software. “Most commercial warehouse software programs today have the capability for two-way communication, and most can be integrated with automated lift truck fleet management software,” observes John Wilkins, a sales engineer for Yale Lift Truck Technologies. The most common are warehouse management systems (WMS) and warehouse control systems (WCS); others include enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, fleet management and telematics systems, and transportation management (TMS) and order management (OMS) systems.
As for how that might work, Rocrich’s Markison gives the example of a WMS sending an order to move a pallet from one location to another. The order typically will include start and completion time, and some indication of the move’s priority. “That order can then be taken into the fleet manager, which will appropriately queue up the tasks that need to be done,” he explains. The forklift must also report completed missions back to the WMS.
HOW TO TALK TO A FORKLIFT
Communication between robotic forklifts and warehouse equipment and software happens in a number of ways. Which method is deployed depends on the equipment and software involved as well as the tasks to be carried out. Each installation is unique in some way, but there are some commonly used approaches.
Some communication protocols are more widely used than others. Examples of those in widespread use include modbus, a serial communication protocol that governs an initiating and a responding device, and CANbus (Controller Area Network), a real-time communication protocol that transmits data to networked industrial controls.
A driverless forklift’s interface with other equipment could be something electromechanical, such as a photo-eye sensor, says Jeff Kuss, product manager–automated solutions at forklift maker and intralogistics specialist The Raymond Corp. A sensor at the end of a conveyor, for instance, could detect the presence of a pallet. That triggers the sensor to create an electrical signal that it sends to a programmable logic controller (PLC). The PLC receives the electrical signal as a digital input and then transmits a message, via ethernet, to the server that controls the automated vehicles. Finally, the server sends the instructions over Wi-Fi to the closest available forklift to “pick up the pallet and take it to Location X.” (Some facilities use Bluetooth or cellular transmission instead of Wi-Fi.) Data that identify loads and trigger a task can also be acquired through IoT (internet of things) platforms, RFID (radio-frequency identification) systems, and barcode scanning.
Another option, Bastian’s Marcum says, is to use infrared-based optic couplers that share bits (binary digits, the smallest units of digital information) as inputs and outputs. When the forklift gets within a certain distance of another piece of equipment, “the two devices can talk to each other, similar to the way a TV remote works,” he explains.
Usually, though, software is a critical intermediary between driverless forklifts and other equipment. It can be complicated. In the case of a WMS, McClurg says, his company’s approach is to send a text or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file to the WMS; in exchange, the WMS sends a file to a folder on the localized network that can be accessed by the automation host software. The fleet manager reads the file and executes it. Once the task has been completed, a message is sent to another folder. The WMS opens it, reads it, and, based on its contents, either closes out the order or sends additional instructions.
To ensure that interfacing software programs understand the messages they receive from each other, it’s often necessary to create an application programming interface (API). An API is a comparatively simple type of middleware—or software layer—that acts as a translator, facilitating communication by reformatting messages so they will be intelligible to the receiver. In essence, they are “setting ground rules in terms of what information is passing back and forth and what it means,” Markison explains.
In some cases, more complex middleware may be needed. According to Brice Bucher, senior manager of products at software developer and systems integrator Flexware Innovation, APIs have limitations. In a presentation at the Autonomous Mobile Robotics & Logistics Conference 2024, Bucher noted that APIs don’t address data transformation, protocol conversion, or business logic integration. When each system has different data formats or requires specific protocols, middleware bridges those gaps, he said. Middleware also ensures that data moves between systems without delay, he said. For example, if an AGV completes a task, middleware can instantly trigger updates across systems, so that WMS, ERP, and other systems are aligned in real time.
CAN WE TALK?
Raymond’s Kuss notes that each communication integration will be unique in some way. That’s partly because automated forklift vendors and suppliers of fleet manager systems have proprietary interfaces. On top of that, software with some degree of customization, such as a WMS, may require modifications to the fleet manager system, he explains. What’s more, adds his colleague John Rosenberger, director, iWarehouse Gateway & Global Telematics, “even if we know the format for efficient data transfer, the content of the messages may differ depending on the forklift manufacturer, or it can be different by functionality.”
Mixed fleets with forklifts from different manufacturers present a particular challenge. Seegrid’s Griffin notes that it’s common for facilities to use robots from multiple vendors. Generally, he says, each automated solution has its own proprietary fleet manager software that understands where all units under its purview are and controls their movements. When robots of different brands cannot be confined to separate areas, it’s important that their fleet managers have the ability to communicate, so they can do things like open and close intersections where different types of robots cross paths.
While it is possible for dissimilar fleet managers to talk to each other, that’s easier said than done. “Those systems inherently are not interoperable,” Nelson says. “The need to share information like coordinates, current status, past assignments, and prioritization makes it difficult to assign travel paths.” In addition, if the forklifts are unable to communicate location information and what they are doing, that can lead to deadlock, where the vehicles simply stop—what Yale’s Wilkinson calls “the classic situation: a staring contest between two autonomous vehicles from different OEMs, neither one capable of blinking or losing.”
A solution for some facilities is third-party fleet manager software that’s designed to work in multiple brands of autonomous forklifts; examples include those offered by independent developers such as Kollmorgen, BlueBotics, Navitech Systems, and Flexware Innovation. In fact, some forklift OEMs partner with these and other providers instead of developing their own fleet managers. This opens the way for a fleet to potentially buy different robots utilizing the same control and navigation system, which will reduce complexity to some degree, Marcum says.
Communications with driverless forklifts may become simpler in the near future. VDA 5050, an open-source protocol for communication between AGVs and fleet manager systems, is currently in development. Coordinated by two German industry organizations, one for auto manufacturers and the other for material handling and intralogistics, this universal protocol promises to allow “any mobile robot, regardless of brand, [to] be seamlessly integrated into existing operations,” wrote Alfredo Pastor Tella, who runs the Europe-based AGV Network website, in a LinkedIn post. Pastor Tella wrote that Kollmorgen will introduce VDA 5050 into its robot control software in 2025, but other industry observers have noted that because the protocol’s roots are in European manufacturing and there are still technical issues to be worked out, it may be a few years before it takes hold in the forklift world. When it does, conversations with autonomous forklift fleets will likely become much less complicated to hold.
Tips for success
Want to be sure your driverless forklifts will always “get the message”? Here are some experts’ recommendations for facilitating communication with them:
Involve your IT experts early! They’ll need to identify what relevant data is currently available and where it resides. Make sure they’re comfortable that any APIs and other software meet your company’s security requirements. For cloud-based systems, verify that the vendor and systems integrator will have remote access if they need to service any of the systems or software. (Brian Markison, Rocrich AGV Solutions)
If you’re buying from different manufacturers, find out which supplier has navigation technology on the brands you’re considering and try to stay with a single system if possible. If you have a single platform, you can make a change just once and the entire fleet will receive that modification. If you have two fleet managers, segregate them as much as possible. Wherever they are separate, you’ll only have to change that one, but in shared areas, you’ll have to change both. (Michael Marcum, Bastian Solutions)
When it comes to facilitating communication, software is not always the best answer. Sometimes something simpler, like PLCs that notify equipment through very basic logic, works just fine. And it’s better to start small and integrate each function as you go, rather than try to integrate everything at once. You can tie two systems together and demonstrate the benefits from that, then use the savings to justify and help fund the next piece. (John Rosenberger, The Raymond Corp.)
Conduct testing in real-world scenarios, and make sure legacy software and communication technologies are compatible with the automation. These systems work in a dynamic environment, and a lot changes over time. Calibration tests can make sure everything still aligns correctly. And remember to inform your vendor of changes in things like throughput rates, layout, pallet sizes and configurations, products, and so on. (Jayce Nelson, Linde Automated Solutions)
In most facilities, commands and data are communicated via Wi-Fi, so connectivity and reliability are a top concern. A pre-installation survey to measure Wi-Fi signal availability and strength throughout the facility is an absolute must. Based on those findings, you may need to enhance signal strength and expand capacity and coverage. In some very large facilities, a private wireless network that uses cellular signals may be the best solution. (Deryk Powell, CEO, Velociti Inc., a provider of technology deployment, support, and integration services)
Hyster-Yale Materials Handling today announced its plans to fulfill the domestic manufacturing requirements of the Build America, Buy America (BABA) Act for certain portions of its lineup of forklift trucks and container handling equipment.
That means the Greenville, North Carolina-based company now plans to expand its existing American manufacturing with a targeted set of high-capacity models, including electric options, that align with the needs of infrastructure projects subject to BABA requirements. The company’s plans include determining the optimal production location in the United States, strategically expanding sourcing agreements to meet local material requirements, and further developing electric power options for high-capacity equipment.
As a part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the BABA Act aims to increase the use of American-made materials in federally funded infrastructure projects across the U.S., Hyster-Yale says. It was enacted as part of a broader effort to boost domestic manufacturing and economic growth, and mandates that federal dollars allocated to infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, ports and public transit systems – must prioritize materials produced in the USA, including critical items like steel, iron and various construction materials.
Hyster-Yale’s footprint in the U.S. is spread across 10 locations, including three manufacturing facilities.
“Our leadership is fully invested in meeting the needs of businesses that require BABA-compliant material handling solutions,” Tony Salgado, Hyster-Yale’s chief operating officer, said in a release. “We are working to partner with our key domestic suppliers, as well as identifying how best to leverage our own American manufacturing footprint to deliver a competitive solution for our customers and stakeholders. But beyond mere compliance, and in line with the many areas of our business where we are evolving to better support our customers, our commitment remains steadfast. We are dedicated to delivering industry-leading standards in design, durability and performance — qualities that have become synonymous with our brands worldwide and that our customers have come to rely on and expect.”
Global forklift sales have slumped in 2024, falling short of initial forecasts as a result of the struggling economy in Europe and the slow release of project funding in the U.S., a report from market analyst firm Interact Analysis says.
In response, the London-based firm has reduced its shipment forecast for the year to rise just 0.3%, although it still predicts consistent growth of around 4-5% out to 2034.
The “bleak” figures come as the European economy has stagnated during the second half of 2024, with two of the leading industry sectors for forklifts - automotive and logistics – struggling. In addition, order backlogs from the pandemic have now been absorbed, so order volumes for the global forklift market will be slightly lower than shipment volumes over the next few years, Interact Analysis said.
On a more positive note, 3 million forklifts are forecast to be shipped per year by 2031 as enterprises are forced to reduce their dependence on manual labor. Interact Analysis has observed that major forklift OEMs are continuing with their long-term expansion plans, while other manufacturers that are affected by demand fluctuations are much more cautious with spending on automation projects.
At the same time, the forklift market is seeing a fundamental shift in power sources, with demand for Li-ion battery-powered forklifts showing a growth rate of over 10% while internal combustion engine (ICE) demand shrank by 1% and lead-acid battery-powered forklift fell 7%.
And according to Interact Analysis, those trends will continue, with the report predicting that ICE annual market demand will shrink over 20% from 670,000 units in 2024 to a projected 500,000 units by 2034. And by 2034, Interact Analysis predicts 81% of fully electric forklifts will be powered by li-ion batteries.
The reasons driving that shift include a move in Europe to cleaner alternatives to comply with environmental policies, and a swing in the primary customer base for forklifts from manufacturing to logistics and warehousing, due to the rise of e-commerce. Electric forklift demand is also growing in emerging markets, but for different reasons—labor costs are creating a growing need for automation in factories, especially in China, India, and Eastern Europe. And since lithium-ion battery production is primarily based in Asia, the average cost of equipping forklifts with li-ion batteries is much lower than the rest of the world.
The number of shipments of mobile robots will rise from 547,000 units in 2023 to 2.79 million by 2030, as customers expand applications from the current typical use case in warehousing and logistics to new tasks in manufacturing, last-mile delivery, agriculture, and healthcare, according to a report from technology analyst firm ABI.
That steep expansion would add up to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.1% by units, and CAGR of 23.6% by revenue, as sales are forecasted to rise from $18 billion to $124 billion by 2030.
“Mobile robots are a very valuable category of robot which have completely transformed warehousing and logistics in recent years,” George Chowdhury, Robotics Industry Analyst at ABI Research, said in a release. “For material handling alone, mobile robots offer enterprises transformative efficiency improvements. Driven by the evolution of supporting technologies such as Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), mobile robots can be deployed in diverse and dynamic environments, presenting new horizons to stakeholders and bringing efficiency improvements to under-automated economic sectors such as agriculture and healthcare.”
While warehousing and logistics will remain the primary adopters, other market verticals will see accelerated uptake by the decade's end, the report said. Shipments catering for agriculture deployments will rise from 7,000 to 129,000 per year by 2030; shipments for delivery will grow from 14,000 to 147,000; and public-facing applications will increase as the use of mobile robots within restaurants progress from 6,000 in 2023 to 78,000 shipments in 2030.
According to ABI, that change will occur as other industries begin to benefit from the decreasing costs, greater versatility, and simplified programmability that vendors are bringing to the mobile robot market. Sorted by market, those vendors include MiR, Omron, Otto Motors, and ABB for intralogistics within manufacturing; companies such as Zebra, Locus, and Safelog for marketing; Simbe and Brain Corp for retail; and Starship for last-mile delivery market.
“Mobile robots will remain the most popular form of robot, and shipments will continue to increase across economies as the benefits of augmenting existing business practices with automation become clear to decision-makers,” Chowdhury said. “As trust in Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) technologies grows, we will increasingly see mobile robots in public spaces. Hospitals, agriculture, retail stores, and last-mile delivery are all nearing readiness for the mass adoption of mobile robots.”