Autonomous forklift - a Revolution of the Factory Floor

The Realtime Systems Group (RTS) of the Leibniz Universität Hannover cooperates with the STILL GmbH in order to facilitate flexible navigation and materials handling. An overriding aim of the project is to reduce costs by using flexible automated materials handling vehicles – both in warehouse and production facilities. Economic gains can be expected, for example, by considerably reducing the risk of accidentally dropping material or misplaced goods. Furthermore, little or no infrastructure changes (such as track guides) are necessary. The possibilities for an autonomous forklift truck are enormous, since the transition between manual and automated operation can be optimised. Futhermore, the transport processes can be reproduced – even those in which a high degree of care is needed when positioning.