Methods for improving visibility measurement standards of powered industrial vehicles

Published

February 28, 2014

Author(s)

Roger V. Bostelman, Jochen Teizer, Soumitry J. Ray, Mike Agronin, Dominic Albanese

Abstract

Poor visibility of powered industrial vehicles, such as forklifts, used in industry is often the cause of accidents that include pedestrians. Current standards allow up to 20% non-visible regions for forklifts where measurement of these regions is performed by using lamps. A collaboration of research organizations, including National Institute of Standards and Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Direct Dimensions, have been evaluating advanced methods for measuring a forklift operator's visibility. These methods can potentially improve visibility standards. They can also help forklift and sensor manufacturers to determine (1) how visibility-assist sensors and algorithms can be designed and (2) where sensors can be mounted on forklifts. This paper includes explanation of visibility measurement experiments performed and results, associated language suggested to standards organizations, and a prototype design for measuring the visibility of forklifts automatically.

Citation

Safety Science

Volume

62

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Visibility, forklift, ANSI/ITSDF B56.11.6, ISO/FDIS 13564-1, safety, 3D sensors/imagers

Citation

Bostelman, R. , Teizer, J. , Ray, S. , Agronin, M. and Albanese, D. (2014), Methods for improving visibility measurement standards of powered industrial vehicles, Safety Science, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=912877 (Accessed October 12, 2025)