Chinese firm VisionNav Robotics, a supplier of driverless vehicles, showed its latest unmanned logistics offering at last month’s KoreaMat exhibition in Seoul.

Combining driverless and industrial IoT technologies, it can help companies realise unmanned logistics in complex scenarios, and improve logistics efficiency and digital management capabilities.

VisionNav was founded in 2016 and applies artificial intelligence (AI), environmental perception, deep learning and servo control technologies to driverless industrial vehicles. It has deployed more than 50 projects all over the world, serving many Fortune 500 companies.

“Since the outbreak of the epidemic, both factory and warehouse logistics has been under tremendous pressure,” said Vivian Han, sales director for VisionNav in Korea. “More and more companies have started to introduce robots to replace manual operations.”

VisionNav focuses on the flexibility and replicability. Based on its previous multi-layer stillage stacking application, VisionNav introduced a multi-layer goods stacking application.

“Stillage stacking and goods stacking have much technical things in common, and these have wide range of needs in manufacturing industry such as automobile and food,” said Han.

The firm uses algorithms and hybrid sensors in the application, which can improve logistics efficiency by a claimed 300% compared with other suppliers.

It also showed a shared pallet with built-in RFID chips and a big data set that tracks goods information and matches information flow with the logistics flow of driverless industrial vehicles. It can help improve truck loading and unloading efficiency by at least 50% and reduce operating costs. These shared pallets are made of 100% recyclable and sustainable plastics, helping reduce carbon emissions and benefitting the environment.

According to Interact Analysis, shipments of mobile robots was 70,602 in 2020 with total revenue of US$2358m, and it is expected to exceed $14,000m in 2024. For countries such as Japan and South Korea, which thrive in high-end manufacturing, many companies are introducing logistics robots to revert their supply chains and counter the impact of labour shortages.