Future Forklift With Mecanum Wheel and Intelligent Human Machine Interface

I am a high school student study at Asia Pacific International School, Hawaii (HI)

In my design the main focus is on :

(1) the degrees of freedom to move.

Because many forklifts are used in narrow warehouses with little room for forklifts operator. If forklift can move in any degrees operator don't need to waste time to turn around.

(2) a easy way to operate the forklift.

In the future many forklift operators may be replaced by robots and these forklifts are operated by central host following automated processes because of the Industry 4.0 so I think future forklift will not have many operator interface.In my design, I designed two tough interfere screen for engineer to set any data or check machine problem,and I still retain the cockpit and joystick for human operator if accident happen or they need forklifts to do extra thing human still can operate forklifts.

Fusion 360 was used for my forklift design. Some google information of forklift design and some paper to draw down the scratch is necessary.

Drawing the thoughts that come to mind will keep me from forgetting anything and make the subsequent modeling process easier.I didn't know how to start to model the forlift so I google some design about forklift. This is good start for me to observe other people design and draw down my idea. I must admit that it is not very well painted, but at least i can remember my ideas

I used the wheel calls Mecanum wheel to let forklife move in all directions so operators don't need to turn around to avoid the obstacle they can just pan and than walk forward.

In the last saction of photo bar you can see a video about modeling of the Mecanum wheel. I have to admin that this is a complicated process.

I search the Web for some photos about forklift body and cockpit designs. I decided not to change too much of the traditional forklift design because practicality should be more important than appearance for the future forklife.

So I use the canvas feature of Fusion, which allows me to build most of the forklift's appearances more quickly. This is a vary useful feature to build model when ypu don't know how to start the design.

To build the Intelligent Human Machine Interface. I designed two touch screens, one on the ceiling of the forklift and one next to the seat, and both of them have a certain degree of freedom so that the operator or engineer can adjust touch screens and make it easier for them to see all the information like forklift battery level, cargo weight or motor driven condition.

About how to adject the touch screen, You can view the video in the last step.

In the appearance of the forklift, I decided to use orange and yellow to match the two more vivid colors, and some decorative logos and stripes use black, because in the warehouse is always gray and dark, if the forklift has a more vivid color, it can make the working environment lively.

I didn't use Fusion 360 Render workspace because I think that design workspace's appearance feature is already good to use. Maybe future I will try to use render workspace.

Towards the end of each design I use the fillet feature to make my design look better, but that's not true everywhere, and adding fillet in some edge may seem a bit redundant.If using fillets looks strange you can use chamfers

After designing the forklift, I used the fusion 360's assemble feature to check the carriage's movements

In the video you can see the movement about carriage.

Finally, this animation can demonstrate how different parts of future forklifts will work, such as angle adjustments for touch screens and macanum wheel.

I am a high school student study at Asia Pacific International School, Hawaii (HI)

This my future forklife design. You can download complete f3d file down hear.