The intelligent evolution of unmanned forklifts, is there still a lack of 3D lidar?

What happens when autonomous lidar is used on unmanned forklifts?

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Looking back at the history of unmanned forklifts, the evolution of navigation technology is undoubtedly the most vivid footnote to the development of the industry.

Note: Evolution of unmanned forklift navigation technology

Early unmanned forklifts needed rail navigation, such as steel rail navigation, electromagnetic navigation, magnetic nail navigation, etc., and the deployment and construction cost of navigation facilities was high. The navigation method at this stage can be called "strong facility navigation". After 1990, the industry gradually appeared such as laser + reflector, color belt and other navigation methods, although the deployment and construction costs of site facilities were greatly reduced, but the frequency of site facility maintenance increased. The navigation method at this stage can be called "weak facility navigation". In the mode where the navigation technology is limited by the site facilities, the unmanned forklift can never operate independently from the site facilities, and the operation route is relatively fixed, and it is difficult to adjust according to the changes in the goods.

After entering the 21st century, natural navigation technology with 2D lidar (that is, single-line lidar) as the core has risen in the field of unmanned forklifts, and at the same time, navigation technologies such as two-dimensional codes have been introduced, and unmanned forklifts have further reduced the dependence on site facilities, reduced facility deployment and maintenance costs, and further improved the degree of flexibility.

2D lidar can help robots avoid obstacles, angular frequency and sensitivity of the response is fast, scanning speed is fast, resolution is strong, reliability is high, in the test of the surrounding obstacles distance and accuracy is more accurate.

However, 2D lidar can only scan a plane, the established 2D map feature information is small, it is difficult to solve the global positioning problem, imaging lacks height information, it is difficult to identify suspended obstacles, can only be applied to the layout of relatively simple, fixed indoor scenes, it is difficult to meet the navigation and positioning needs of unmanned forklifts in complex scenes.

With the increasingly urgent intelligent demand for industrial and logistics warehousing, the flexibility, versatility and safety and reliability of unmanned forklift trucks have put forward higher challenges. This has made a number of head forklift enterprises at home and abroad, such as Hangcha, Hikvision Robot, Guozi Robot, Agilox, Seegrid, etc., gradually begin to lay out 3D lidar navigation obstacle avoidance technology with superior performance, so that the industry ushers in a new atmosphere of navigation technology upgrading.

3D LiDAR, unmanned forklift "eye of intelligent navigation"

3D lidar, which can simultaneously transmit and receive multiple laser beams to achieve three-dimensional stereoscopic imaging, is widely used in the field of automatic driving. With the development of the industry and the upgrading of demand, lidar products such as 16-line and 32-line have gradually begun to be applied in the field of unmanned forklifts.

Note: 2D (single-line) lidar imaging (left); 3D (multilinear) lidar imaging (right)

From the comparison of the point cloud imaging map of 3D lidar and 2D lidar, it can be found that 3D lidar can scan the three-dimensional space, output three-dimensional point cloud density, clear three-dimensional contour of objects and walls, accurate reflectivity differentiation, and provide a large number of accurate and reliable information support for real-time positioning and navigation of unmanned forklifts.

On the other hand, 3D lidar has the advantages of strong detection ability to detect low reflectivity objects, strong ability to resist ambient light interference, strong penetration ability of rain, fog, snow and dust, etc., and can be used in indoor and outdoor complex scenes, which has significant advantages over 2D lidar.

By equipping with 3D lidar, unmanned forklifts will greatly enhance their perception capabilities, obtain higher operational efficiency, operational accuracy and adaptability to complex indoor and outdoor scenarios, so as to achieve flexible and intelligent applications and promote the intelligent transformation of warehousing and logistics.

01

Open up indoor and outdoor scene applications, flexibly adapt to different operational needs

At present, the unmanned forklift navigation scheme on the market is mainly suitable for indoor scenarios. But in fact, in addition to the internal logistics of the warehouse, the handling and loading and unloading between the warehouse and the outdoor container truck, flying wing truck and flatbed truck is also a very important link. In order for unmanned forklifts to achieve truly efficient full-process operation, they must be compatible with indoor and outdoor scenarios.

Note: The VNE 20 indoor and outdoor counterweight unmanned forklift equipped with RS-Bpearl lidar

Taking the VNE 20 indoor and outdoor counterbalance unmanned forklift under Future Robotics as an example, a RoboSense RS-Bpearl lidar is deployed on the top of the VNE 20. The radar uses 32 laser beams to form a hemispherical field of view of 360° × 90°, which can detect obstacles around the body and changes in ground terrain without dead angles. For the core application scenarios of VNE20 platform loading and unloading, RS-Bpearl lidar can fully detect the terrain changes of the platform ground cliffs, accurately identify the shape and size of the platform and the edge position, and protect the forklift from falling onto the platform.

Combined with the self-developed visual navigation system of the future robot, the perception and control ability of the VNE20 body has been greatly improved, and at the same time, it has strong anti-interference, can cope with the light changes in the outdoor environment, freely shuttle in indoor and outdoor scenes, and flexibly adapt to different operational requirements.

02

Integrate navigation and obstacle avoidance to optimize the number of sensor deployments

The lidar of unmanned forklifts is mainly divided into two types of functions: obstacle avoidance and navigation. Previously, unmanned forklift manufacturers would choose different products for different functional needs, but in recent years, with the development of unmanned forklift navigation obstacle avoidance algorithm technology and the sharp decline in the cost of 3D lidar, the unmanned forklift industry has begun to try to concentrate the function of obstacle avoidance and navigation on a lidar. On the one hand, the number of lidar installed in the forklift can be relatively reduced, reducing the cost; on the other hand, it can also help the forklift achieve better navigation and obstacle avoidance through the superior performance of 3D lidar and 3D SLAM technology.

Note: Shangong Intelligent and RoboSense have reached a strategic cooperation based on the application of multi-line lidar for automatic forklifts

For example, the automatic forklift released by Xian Gong Intelligent last year is equipped with RoboSense's 32-line lidar RS-Helios. The lidar not only provides a horizontal zero-degree line, but also has a 70° ultra-wide vertical FOV (55° downward dive), which means that a 3D lidar can achieve accurate detection of positional navigation and low-rise objects on the forklift's driving path, easily achieving navigation and obstacle avoidance, which not only optimizes the number of automatic forklift sensors, but also increases support for outdoor scene operations.

Note: RS-Helios vertical field of view schematic and outdoor real-time 3D imaging point cloud deployed on The Smart Forklift

It is worth mentioning that based on the large field of view of RS-Helios vertical direction and the number of dense laser scanning lines, Xiangong Intelligent has further developed the function of detecting the shape and size of goods and shelves to achieve intelligent loading and unloading of goods.

03

Reduce costs and increase efficiency, and promote the intelligent process of unmanned forklifts

In the past for a long time, the head market of unmanned forklift navigation lidar was occupied by foreign investors, and forklift companies mostly used 2D lidar from foreign manufacturers. Due to the early development of foreign enterprises, the industry precipitation is deep, and the stability and reliability of products are relatively high, so their prices have remained at the level of expensive ten thousand yuan for a long time. Especially affected by the epidemic in recent years, the price of foreign single-line lidar is even rising.

With the development of the automatic driving industry in the past decade, the price of domestic vehicle 3D lidar has continued to decline, from 100,000 to 10,000 yuan. In the face of significant cost performance, more and more manufacturers are considering replacing overseas 2D lidar with domestic 3D lidar.

Domestic lidar companies represented by Robosense (Sagitar Juchuang) have gradually entered the unmanned forklift market. As one of the representative enterprises of intelligent lidar, RoboSense has been recognized by by BYD, Lotus, Extreme Krypton, WM and other car companies in the field of intelligent driving. At present, RoboSense's two lidars for the field of low- and medium-speed autonomous driving, RS-Bpearl and RS-Helios, have been applied by head enterprises at home and abroad such as Xiangong Intelligence, Wood Ant Robot, Agilox, Seegrid, etc., and have become the new favorite of the global unmanned forklift industry.

Note: German Agilox unmanned forklifts are equipped with RS-Bpearl lidar

From the perspective of the future development direction of the entire industry, with the continuous deepening of application scenarios, the application of 3D lidar is an inevitable trend for unmanned forklifts to further intelligent, which is also a new development window for domestic lidar.

For the domestic unmanned forklift field with a penetration rate of less than 1%, how unmanned forklift companies should leverage the comprehensive advantages of the domestic perception and navigation technology industry chain to reduce costs and increase efficiency in the post-epidemic era, complete intelligent leapfrog upgrading, and achieve "curve overtaking" in the world has become a proposition on the surface.