Sensors for the Logistics & Material Handling Industry

Material handling is about scale and uptime. A distribution centre may run thousands of sensors across kilometres of conveyor, in a dusty environment, with product varying from a padded envelope to a loaded pallet.

The material handling environment

• Dust from cartons and packaging accumulates steadily on optical lenses. Through-beam sensors have the highest excess gain and keep working longest as contamination builds.
• Long spans across wide conveyors exceed the range of diffuse sensing, so through-beam and retro-reflective are the practical choices.
• Varied product — light and dark, shiny and matt, large and small — makes diffuse sensing unreliable because its range depends on target reflectivity.
• Sensor count means unit cost and ease of replacement matter as much as specification.

Where our sensors are used

• Conveyor lines — package presence, gap control and jam detection.
• Sortation — divert confirmation and chute-full detection.
• Accumulation zones — queue and buffer management.
• Palletising and depalletising — pallet and layer detection, with safety light curtains at operator stations.
• Dock and door areas — vehicle and door position detection.
• AGV and shuttle systems — position confirmation and end-of-travel detection.

Choosing between photoelectric types

• Through beam — longest range, highest dust tolerance, detects any opaque item regardless of colour. Needs power and mounting on both sides.
• Retro-reflective — one-sided wiring with a passive reflector opposite. The pragmatic default across most conveyor work.
• Diffuse — simplest to install, but range varies with product reflectivity, so use it only at close range with consistent product.