Lidar developer Ouster and automation specialist Third Wave Automation are collaborating to automate material handling vehicles. As part of the collaboration, Ouster will supply Third Wave Automation with 5,000 lidar sensors by 2025.

Third Wave Automation combines hybrid autonomous vehicles, intelligent fleet management, remote operation, and assistance capabilities for autonomous material handling. Vehicles, such as forklifts, will be equipped with up to four Ouster sensors to carry out tasks such as object detection, localisation, and mapping. The Third Wave Automation solution can be built into new material handling vehicles, including those developed through a partnership with Toyota Industrial Corporation. The system offers the ability for vehicles to operate in manual, remote control, or fully autonomous modes.

Ouster expects its total addressable market for the industrial vertical to reach an estimated $2.1 billion by 2025. This is driven in part by the material handling equipment market, which is expected to expand from $212 billion in 2019 to $321 billion by 2027.

“After a series of tests with several other lidar technologies, we selected Ouster’s OS sensors for their high resolution and reliability, along with their ability to detect obstacles close to the vehicle,” said Mac Mason, Co-founder and Chief Robotics Officer at Third Wave. “We view Ouster as the performance leader in 3D lidar and as a dependable long-term partner to scale with as Third Wave’s business grows.”

“Ouster continues to win new customers in the industrial vertical, which is ripe for automation with 3D digital lidar. Third Wave is one of the leading material handling automation upstarts poised to scale rapidly across our warehouse and logistics submarkets,” said Nate Dickerman, President of Field Operations at Ouster. “Our two companies see an incredible opportunity to help modernise the supply chain through automated technologies that increase safety, efficiency, and productivity.”