In the latest episode of the AI in Manufacturing podcast on Industry 4.0 TV, host Kudzai Manditereza sits down with Ashan Posohi, CEO and co-founder of Third Wave Automation, to explore how AI-powered robots are transforming material handling. The focus is on autonomous forklifts and their impact on productivity, safety, and the future of manufacturing.

Arshan Poursohi brings a rich background in robotics and research, having worked with Sun Microsystems, Google Research, and Toyota Research. His experiences exposed him to global labor challenges, such as aging workforces and a shortage of young people entering physically demanding jobs. Recognizing the urgent need to address these issues, Arshan founded Third Wave Automation to apply modern AI and robotics solutions to material handling in warehouses and manufacturing environments.

The discussion highlights how AI and robotics are revolutionizing the manufacturing industry by automating "dull, dirty, and dangerous" tasks.

Key benefits include:

• Increased Productivity: Operators can manage an entire fleet of autonomous forklifts from a single workstation, significantly boosting the number of pallets moved per day.

Third Wave Automation introduces the concept of shared autonomy or human-in-the-loop machine learning. Unlike fully autonomous systems that aim for "lights out" operations, this approach keeps humans in the loop:

• Collaborative Operations: Robots perform tasks but can recognize when human intervention is needed, such as when a payload is precariously positioned.

Arshan shares a success story involving a customer who deals with large bags of powder prone to shifting—a challenge for automation due to safety concerns. Using shared autonomy, the autonomous forklifts learned to handle these unstable payloads safely and efficiently:

• Adaptive Learning: The AI models quickly adapted to recognize when human assistance was needed.

Listen to the full episode to learn more.