Third Wave Automation and Ouster partner to automate material handling

Third Wave Automation, a provider of autonomous solutions for the material handling industry, announced today that it has signed a strategic customer agreement with Ouster, a leading provider of high-resolution digital lidar sensors. The agreement includes a forecast for over five thousand OS sensors through 2025 to equip robotic material handling vehicles with 3D digital lidar, a key component of Third Wave’s autonomous driving sensor suite.

Powered by a proprietary advanced perception software and collaborative autonomy platform, Third Wave touts that it combines hybrid autonomous vehicles, intelligent fleet management, remote operation, and assistance capabilities to provide holistic material handling solutions that improve over time. Third Wave’s autonomous forklifts will be equipped with up to four Ouster sensors to carry out tasks such as object detection, localization, and mapping.

The Third Wave Automation solution can be built into new material handling vehicles, including those developed through its strategic partnership with Toyota Industries Corporation, which was announced last May. The system offers the ability for vehicles to operate in manual, remote control, or fully autonomous modes, providing the end customer with flexibility in task management, Third Wave added.

“After a series of tests with several other lidar technologies, we selected Ouster’s OS sensors for their high resolution and reliability, along with their ability to detect obstacles close to the vehicle,” said Mac Mason, Co-founder and Chief Robotics Officer at Third Wave. “We view Ouster as the performance leader in 3D lidar and as a dependable long-term partner to scale with as Third Wave’s business grows.”

As global supply chain automation continues to accelerate, Ouster expects its total addressable market for the industrial vertical to reach an estimated $2.1 billion by 20251. This is driven in part by the material handling equipment market which is expected to expand from $212 billion in 2019 to $321 billion by2027, representing a significant opportunity to capture demand for automation across warehouses, manufacturing floors, ports, and distribution yards.

“Ouster continues to win new customers in the industrial vertical, which is ripe for automation with 3D digital lidar. Third Wave is one of the leading material handling automation upstarts poised to scale rapidly across our warehouse and logistics submarkets,” said Nate Dickerman, President of Field Operations at Ouster. “Our two companies see an incredible opportunity to help modernize the supply chain through automated technologies that increase safety, efficiency, and productivity.”