and an additional 20,000 are seriously injured. As a result, Sick believes the manned vehicle market here may be ripe for more safety-related sensors and other sensor automation products.

Some products today are available that can stop a forklift truck or other manned vehicle upon impact. But such

contact-only systems do nothing to anticipate or prevent collisions before they occur, says Kelly. She believes that non-contact solutions of the kind used on AGVs can help forklift truck owners improve safety, while also reducing damage and downtime.

Sick has already sold some Laser Bumpers into a U.S. government facility that is using them to automatically slow down manned forklifts, as a way to avoid accidents, says Kelly. And Sick is also looking to develop lower-cost collision avoidance sensor products that might be more suitable for the manned vehicle market, she adds.

So far, forklift manufacturers have shown limited interest in Sick’s Laser Bumper system, Kelly indicates. But a couple of manned forklift suppliers are currently testing various other Sick sensors, she says. “I think the time is right for us to go out and talk about this, and try to build a bridge between the AGV world and the manned forklift world,” says Kelly. “It’s not that forklifts should go to the extremes that AGVs do, at a full level of automation, but there are some things that they could learn from what AGVs are doing in this space.”

For more information, search keyword “sensors” at www.automationworld.com.

See sidebar to this article: Getting the Scoop on Vehicle Impacts