Balyo is among the market leadersA new competitive ranking by global technology intelligence firm ABI Research ranks the autonomous forklift solutions offered by 16 autonomous forklift suppliers.
The ranking is based on eight criteria segmented across innovation and implementation clusters. The analysis covers three major categories of autonomous forklifts - reach trucks, counterbalance stackers and pallet trucks, and evaluates the level of maturity in navigation solutions, fleet management and orchestration, as well as the vendors’ integration and optimisation capability.
Balyo, Teradyne, Seegrid and Seer did best in the analysis, classed as market leaders.
A group of vendors including Vecna Robotics, ABB, VisionNav Robotics, Agilox, Toyota Motor Corp., Standard Robots, ForwardX Robotics, Geek+ and Gideon are classed as “mainstream”, while Hikrobot, DS Automotion, and Lanxin Technology are classified as “followers”.
In addition to its advanced navigation capabilities, Balyo has industrial partnerships with two of the largest forklift manufacturers in the world in KION and Hyster-Yale, extensive distribution networks through Körber, Clevertech and ULMA, and a strategic partnership with Amazon. Teradyne excels in implementation due to the brand awareness of its subsidiaries, Universal Robots (UR) and Mobile Industrial Robot (MiR). Seegrid’s continual focus on heavy-load materials handling enables the company to differentiate itself from the market. Lastly, Seer’s credentials come mainly from hardware innovation, where the company’s ARM-based controller can perform on-robot navigation while meeting all critical functional safety standards. As a result, the robots will no longer need a safety Programmable Logic Controller (PLC).
“Autonomous forklifts are Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) that can move freely without relying on surrounding infrastructure, as all players use either vision simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) or laser SLAM for navigation through two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) light detection and ranging (LiDAR), as well as stereoscopic cameras,” explains Malik Saadi, vice president at ABI Research.
“Fewer than 1% of the deployed forklifts today are autonomous. During the pandemic, the need for autonomous materials handling at high payloads had risen significantly due to supply chain disruptions and labour shortages. As more and more end-users adopt autonomous forklifts and taste their benefits, the market is expected to undergo robust growth,” Saadi notes.