Airtrax Omnidirectional vehicles.

[mjncad]

Check out Airtrax omnidirectional vehicles at www.airtrax.com . I saw this drive system on Discovery Channel痴 撤rototype This tonight. I wonder if the drive wheel was inspired by the Kruller doughnut.

http://www.dobhran.com/images/donut-donut2.gif

 

[Scooby074]

I've read up on them before. The technology very interesting. It definitely has potential for vehicles used in tight locations (ie: forklifts), however in the article i read it was significantly more expensive then a conventional wheeled forklift. Last i read, the company was having some financial difficulties as well.

Its based on this technology Mecanum wheel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Video of the forklift in actionYouTube - Airtrax - Sidewinder Very cool. Almost "Moon Walks" across the floor.

I think the military was interested in it for transport in confined areas. Those omni directional wheels are also seen on this concept car.Mitsubishi MMR525 Rally Racer | Concept Cars

 

[mjncad]

I have no doubt that the wheels and control systems make the vehicles significantly more expensive than conventional technology; but if the increased productivity to added cost ratio is attractive enough to make the return on investment numbers work out, then I think they have a good product. I can only hope they don't sink in this crummy economy as it's great to see innovation hasn't died in this country completely.

 

[Scooby074]

It appears they have given up on making their own products, and are now concentrating on licensing the technology to others. They have also just had a small cash infusion to try and get through these rough times.

Heres hoping they make it. They lost their founder a couple of years ago. By having other companies that specialize in lifts license the technology hopefully the price will drop from the over $100,000 the lifts sold for originally to something more reasonable. Id rather have 3, $30k lifts than one $100K one

 

[Pfm1011]

Great toy, They are dreaming if they think anyone will buy it. Not only does the machine cost a bundle, I cant imagine the replacement costs of tires and Im guessing you arent getting 5000 hours out of them like forklift tires. Probably closer to 500 if you are very very lucky and the floors are polished.

Financial trouble...3.5 million loss on revenue of 600K. thats beyond "trouble" . It appears the only customers have been military and they dont own the patent on the technology, the bought a licence from the US navy for 2500 . Dont rush out and buy these stocks unless you need a huge loss.

 

[AlanB]

I guess we are some of the folks that they are dreaming about.

We can see some great benefits to being able to traverse sideway's down our aisles and pull pallets.

I don't know about the price, but you have to compare apples to apples to get accurate pricing.

You can bet we will look hard at these on the next round for the next warehouse.

If it would allow me to stack in one extra pallet rack row in the warehouse, how much would that be worth?

 

[Pfm1011]

It may allow an extra row but so will a raymond swing picker. Raymond will actually save a pile of space over this unit. Even a simple order picker will work in less space then this. If you really need the space look at the Raymond Fiddler. Smaller , same functions, Company will be around next year.

With forks it will still be 12 feet for the aisle on the airtrax. You are simply saving the turning room.

I can see major problems with these units in regards to dirt on the floor chewing up the tires and huge costs to replace tires. Additionally a company that loses 6 x their revenue simply says you are dreaming if you think you will be able to get tires or support in a few years.

Great concept but not realistic for anything but military bomb loaders operating on a deck where they do FOD walks constantly and have unlimited budget.

 

[Scooby074]

As cool as the technology is, i think that its best uses might be in the military in extremely tight locations(IE on ship or plane), or in locations where the ground might be rougher than conventional tight turning lifts can operate.

Coming as an ex-warehousing dude, there are more conventional machines that can give you the added row in your existing warehouse such as narrow or very narrow isle reach trucks as you likely know. I just dont see the cost benefit in a conventional warehousing situation, and apparently other managers didnt either as they only sold 50 machines at their previous price point.

Without being too negative, i can see some applications in the civilian market such as the man lifts they prototyped. Having run them i can see how the ability to move in any direction instantly would be a benefit.

 

[mjncad]

By having other companies that specialize in lifts license the technology hopefully the price will drop from the over $100,000 the lifts sold for originally to something more reasonable. Id rather have 3, $30k lifts than one $100K one

Back in the 1980's a Colorado company called Auto-Trol www.auto-trol.com was a major player in the CADD (Computer Aided Design Drafting) market. At around the time they were releasing their AGW (Advanced Graphics Workstation) running on an Apollo computer using the AEGIS flavor of UNIX; a small start-up company called Autodesk was releasing AutoCAD for the PC. Auto-Trol's sales pitch for the AGW was, "Now every engineer can have his own workstation." The cost for one AGW back then was $100,000. The cost for one AutoCAD PC with software was $10,000.

Auto-Trol got out of the CADD market, quit making its own workstations and appears to sell add-ons to other people's software. Autodesk on the other hand is filthy stinking rich.

A similar situation may happen with Airtrax. I just hope they can find a way to survive and market their technology.