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IEMI Labs
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VisionDesign complete (stages 1-6), not built

ForkGuard Log

Impact, near-miss and pre-shift-check evidence for small forklift fleets

Logs every impact, every reversing near miss with a person and the daily pre-shift check on each forklift, with an advisory cab chime as a driver aid.

Who buys it
Operations or EHS managers at warehouses, 3PLs, builders' merchants and plants with 5-40 mixed-brand forklifts and no OEM telematics.
Why it pays
A 20-truck site loses about $8-12k a year to rack and door damage found late and to unprovable paper checks. ForkGuard costs about $10.1k in year 1 and $2.2k a year after (est.).
Target price
$399 per truck + $9/truck/month (target)
First-minute wow
A floor-plan heat map of where reversing near misses happen, and a text to the supervisor a minute after a rack is hit.
See the CAD designConcept page
ForkGuard Log concept: the idea and where each part goes
The concept. The CAD design is below, under Printable CAD.

What the research found

And how this design answers it

  • Life-safety liability -> sold as an evidence recorder; the chime is a labelled driver aid and there is no truck-control output
  • AI warning kits already sell for about $950 -> under half the price, competing on fleet data: impacts, hotspots, checks and hours
  • Enterprise near-miss and telematics platforms are quote-only -> published price, any brand, any voltage, month-to-month
  • Hailo per truck at about 6 W -> on-sensor IMX500 AI camera with a Pi Zero 2 W at about 3 W
  • Truck power and vibration -> railway-rated Mean Well RSD-30 converters for 12-80 V, TPU isolators, M12 connector, read-only filesystem
  • Cameras on workers -> no images stored or sent by default; operator names only on the check they sign

Use case

Rack upright hit during the afternoon shift

Forklift operatorShift supervisorRack inspector

  1. 01Trigger: truck FL-07 reverses into a rack upright at 14:20
  2. 02Detect: the accelerometer logs a 4.1 g, 40 ms impact in the Aisle 12-14 zone
  3. 03Alert: the supervisor gets a text within a minute with truck, zone and severity
  4. 04Action: the supervisor tags the bay out and calls the rack inspector the same shift

Outcome: Damage found in minutes instead of at the annual inspection; one upright replaced before it fails, about $500-1,000 (est.)

How it works

Architecture

  1. 01

    Sense: Raspberry Pi AI Camera (IMX500) detects people on the sensor; LIS3DH logs impacts; isolated input reads the reverse signal

  2. 02

    Decide: Pi Zero 2 W tracks people, sets distance bands and raises near-miss and impact events

  3. 03

    Send: events go to SQLite first, then MQTT/TLS over site Wi-Fi, with 30 days of store-and-forward

  4. 04

    Tell: advisory cab chime and LED bar; supervisor texts; weekly hotspot and check-compliance report

Hardware

Real parts, buyable today

Bill of materials: about $250 per truck (est.).

BlockPartWhy this part
DetectorRaspberry Pi AI Camera (Sony IMX500)Person detection on the sensor for $70 at about 1 W
HostRaspberry Pi Zero 2 WTracking, IMU, Wi-Fi and BLE zone hints for $15
ImpactLIS3DH +/-16 g accelerometer400 Hz with an interrupt so no impact is missed while busy
PowerMean Well RSD-30G/L/H-5Railway-rated isolated 5 V from any 12-80 V truck
CabWS2812 LED bar, 85 dB piezo, IP67 buttonCheck status, advisory chime and mute in one small pod

Mechanical

Printable CAD

10 parts, generated from code and checked as closed solids. Pick a part to inspect it, or download the STL files to print.

See the CAD parts render
ForkGuard Log printable parts, rendered from the CAD
Render of the printable parts from the actual CAD. Not yet printed or photographed.

Loading the CAD…

Real CAD · drag to rotate · scroll to zoomReal CAD · swipe sideways

Open risks we are working on

  • Buyers or insurers may read it as a safety system; labels, contract and insurance must say it is a driver aid
  • Commodity AI warning kits may add cloud logs and squeeze the price
  • IMX500 recall on crouching or partly hidden people in cluttered aisles is unproven
  • Pi Zero 2 W and microSD reliability under forklift vibration and key-off power cuts

Design stage only: nothing on this page is for sale. Specifications and prices are targets.