Hubtex develops aisle entry assistant for narrow-aisle warehouses

Multidirectional sideloaders are often used in narrow-aisle warehouses to optimize storage capacity. The vehicle is often guided by guide rollers on the vehicle and guide rails on the rack upright. The safety distance between the vehicle and the rack is only 100 mm. The entrance area is usually funnel-shaped or rounded for better access. When handling particularly long loads, the entry funnels are also longer, which in turn requires a larger transfer aisle. The challenge for the driver is to hit the entry area precisely. It is not uncommon for these systems to cause damage to the vehicle or the racking system. The newly developed aisle entry assistant is designed to help drivers master these and other difficulties in narrow-aisle warehouses even better.

Support for critical drive-in situations

The system is based on the raw data from a 2D lidar sensor, a laser scanner. This determines the relative distance to the entry funnel and orients the vehicle to the center line of the narrow aisle. "Based on this information, the assistance system aligns the truck centrally in front of the aisle and parallel to its course. The truck can therefore enter the aisle without colliding. This allows the driver to concentrate on monitoring the vehicle's surroundings and set a speed appropriate to the situation," explains Michael Röbig, authorized signatory and responsible for development projects at Hubtex.

The system is available in two versions. Firstly as a stand-alone system and secondly as an add-on to the Hubtex mobile personal protection system. If a personal protection system is already installed on the vehicle, the same sensors can be used for the aisle entry aid. Due to the existing hardware, the sensory aisle entry aid is cheaper to implement.

Less damage and benefits for warehouse planning

The patented system prevents damage to both the storage device and the vehicle's mechanical guide aids. The same applies to collisions between long loads picked up and stored loads in the entry area. There will also be future advantages in warehouse planning. Entry funnels can be made significantly less massive and savings can be made in racking planning.