The innovation: Noovelia’s self-guided forklift moves around the factory or warehouse autonomously, orients itself in space, avoids obstacles, locates the object or load to be moved, and performs the work without any human intervention.
Posted at 11:00 a.m.
Who ?
Noovelia was founded in January 2019, a merger of three companies with complementary activities. The two largest, Divel and Epsilia, were dedicated for one to the design and manufacture of autonomous industrial vehicles (AMR/AGV), for the other to the development of production and inventory management software based on the food traceability. In 2018, Dive contributed to the creation of the Research Chair for Intelligent Navigation of Autonomous Industrial Vehicles at UQTR, which provided the project with around forty university interns.
A first prototype of an autonomous vehicle, developed by the chair and Noovelia, was completed in 2019.
On this technological basis, the Louiseville company has launched the development of two autonomous mobile robots: a mobile load transport platform and a forklift.
It was necessary to have software and equipment that were adaptive and flexible. That’s why we decided to go with our research chair and develop our own navigation algorithms.
Stéphane Elliott, vice-president of business development at Noovelia
PHOTO PROVIDED BY NOOVELIA
The autonomous forklift is able to lift and deposit a load on the ground, at height, in narrow areas or on conveyors.
Natural navigation
The handling platform and the forklift share 80% of the same internal infrastructure and the same functionalities.
For these two devices, Noovelia and the UQTR chair have developed a “movement by natural navigation” system, that is to say that they orient themselves by identifying the elements of their environment.
“It’s the vehicle that decides where it goes,” describes Stéphane Elliott. We put laser sensors on it so that it is able to follow its environment, to see where it is. »
PHOTO MACAM.TV, PROVIDED BY NOOVELIA
President of Divel at the time of the merger that created Noovelia in 2019, Stéphane Elliott is now vice president of business development for the new company.
A map of the places is put in his memory. “He knows the destination where we want him to go, and from there, he chooses his path. »
Designed and manufactured in Quebec
The forklift is able to lift and deposit a load on the ground, at height, in narrow areas or on conveyors.
Its payload can reach 5,000 lb (2,268 kg), which is almost double that of most competitors’ carts, says Stéphane Elliott. “We did it to be in a slightly different range,” he says.
“Since we own the technology, we are able to adapt our programming as much as our vehicle, or even its tools. »
It is also to differentiate itself that the company took care of the industrial design of its products, which it entrusted to the firm Novo, of Trois-Rivières.
“There are still parts that come from Asia, but the design, manufacturing and software development are 100% Quebecers,” informs Stéphane Elliott.
The future
Until recently, Noovelia focused on the Quebec market. “Now that we have our standard products, which are more and more proven, we have a lot of requests, notes the vice-president. We are about to sign contracts on the Ontario side and we have started canvassing the northern United States a lot. »
An increase in orders will not cause difficulties for the company of some 70 employees. “We will not be limited by quantity. Since it’s a modular concept and we do a lot of business with subcontractors and regional partners, we can double or triple our production. »