Denso and Toyota Industries announced in October 2026 that they had begun using an automated system to load and unload trucks at a Denso plant that makes inverters. The system combines Toyota Industries’ Rinova Autonomous forklift with Denso’s LiDsEYE lidar sensor.
The forklift detects where the truck is parked and how the pallets are positioned, then plans its route. The lidar monitors the truck yard and helps stop the forklift if someone enters its work area.
The companies also plan to test whether the lidar can identify the position and size of loads.
Source: Toyota Industries
PSR Analysis: Toyota Industries began selling the forklift in 2025. The Denso project will help show whether monitoring the whole yard makes automated truck loading practical at bays where people and forklifts share space. If a plant can use the same bays for both manual and automated work, it may be able to introduce automation without setting aside a dedicated bay.
If people frequently cross the forklift’s path, repeated stops may still force workers to take over. The best test is how the system handles busy periods, when delays can affect several trucks at once. Two figures would be useful: the share of trucks the system handles without a worker taking over and how long trucks wait at those bays.PSR
Akihiro Komuro is Research Analyst, Far East and Southeast Asia
