Danaher Motion and Sky-Trax Collaborate to Provide World’s First AGV-Forklift Collision Avoidance System

Innovative Sky-Trax Indoor Positioning System™ to Avert Collisions between Automatic Guided Vehicles and Forklift Trucks. 

New Castle, Delaware, June 18, 2007 (PRWEB) Sky-Trax Inc. (Sky-Trax) announced today that it has formed a strategic relationship with Danaher Motion of Saro, Sweden to jointly develop and market the world’s first Indoor Collision Avoidance System (ICAS) for industrial vehicles.

The companies will strategically align their respective technologies and marketing efforts to address the growing number of costly accidents AGV’s incur when struck by free roaming forklift trucks and other mobile industrial equipment. By design, AGV’s are precise in their execution of instructions, such as route, speed, and direction. It is the random nature of free-roaming vehicles such as forklift trucks, that cause concern not only for AGV damage, but for personnel safety and lost productivity. Also the overall route planning for the AGVs are improved thanks to the knowledge of the location of the forklift trucks.

“We look forward to introducing this technology as a means of enhancing operations in mixed manned and unmanned environments.”, said Jonas Rahm, Director of Engineering for Danaher Motion. 

Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGV’s), forklift trucks, and other free-roaming or guided vehicles will be equipped with Sky-Trax Indoor Positioning System™ (IPS), the highly accurate navigation system developed by Sky-Trax. IPS determines each vehicle’s precise position and instantaneously broadcasts it to other vehicles in order to forewarn drivers or AGV navigation systems of impending collisions. 

“We believe the global reach of the Danaher Motion brand and their leadership in driving innovation makes them an ideal technology partner for utilizing IPS technology into material handling safety applications.  Early feedback from customers indicated this solution will be eagerly embraced in modern material handling operations worldwide” said Larry Mahan, Sky-Trax President.

The capital costs of repairing or replacing AGV’s disabled by collision are typically dwarfed by supply-chain disruption to warehouse operations. Together, Danaher Motion and Sky-Trax will endeavor to greatly reduce these costs and improve employee safety.

About Danaher Motion

Danaher Motion is a leading global manufacturer of motion control products that improve the efficiency and productivity of complex manufacturing operations. Danaher Motion's product innovations have been revolutionising the motion control industry through trusted brand names including Kollmorgen, Thomson and Dover. Danaher Motion's co-ordinated precision technology is used within a wide range of industrial contexts, including in semiconductors and robotics, aeronautics and medical engineering as well as in the mobile off highway, plastics and packaging industries. Further information is available at: www.danahermotion.com 

About Sky-Trax Inc.

Sky-Trax develops revolutionary inch-accurate tracking systems for warehouse vehicles. Safety and productivity applications employing IPS are economical and practical to deploy, allowing warehouse professionals to substantially increase safety and improve warehouse efficiency. The results are fewer safety incidents, much lower operating costs and greater throughput. For more information, please visit www.sky-trax.com 

© Danaher Motion / IC 2007.

No fee for publication, but please notify PR agency Industrie-Contact (see below). 

Company contact details:

Danaher Motion GmbH, Christian Stockfleth

Wacholderstraße 40-42, 40489 Düsseldorf, Germany

Tel: +49 (0)203 - 9979-0, Fax: +49 (0)203 - 9979-155

c.stockfleth@danahermotion.de

PR agency & copies of reprints:

Industrie-Contact, Erik Biewendt

Postfach 52 02 62, 22592 Hamburg, Germany

Tel: +49 (0)40 - 899 666-14

eb@ic-gruppe.com

Sky-Trax, Inc. Thomas Weishaar

245 Quigley Blvd. Suite 1

New Castle, DE 19720

USA

+01 302-395 9540 ext 805

tom@sky-trax.com