FORT Robotics and NVIDIA have launched a new AI-powered “Outside-In Safety” solution that advances autonomous robot operations by integrating external infrastructure sensors alongside traditional onboard systems. This collaborative approach aims to enhance robot productivity while ensuring worker safety in environments where humans and robots coexist.
The system leverages NVIDIA’s IGX Thor platform and Holoscan Sensor Bridge to process data from building-mounted cameras and other external sensors, enabling robots to dynamically adjust their behavior in real time. This contrasts with conventional inside-out safety methods that depend solely on onboard sensors and often enforce conservative performance limits, leading to slower operations.
By extending robot perception beyond the robot itself, the Outside-In Safety solution optimizes throughput for tasks such as warehouse inventory restocking and truck unloading. It provides proactive situational awareness to prevent accidents, allowing robots to operate safely at higher speeds and in complex, dynamically changing environments.
This new blueprint incorporates the FORT Trust Layer, which works alongside NVIDIA’s AI capabilities to deliver safety-certifiable, real-time control over robot systems. It is designed to repurpose existing infrastructure, such as building-mounted cameras, making the safety upgrade more cost-effective for industries focused on manufacturing and logistics.
FORT Robotics is also part of the NVIDIA Halos AI Systems Inspection Lab, an ANSI-accredited facility that supports rigorous functional safety, cybersecurity, and AI compliance testing for physical AI systems like robotics and autonomous vehicles. This collaboration underscores ongoing efforts to ensure physical AI deployments are trustworthy and scalable at industrial levels.
The companies showcased this technology at the Automate conference, highlighting how enhanced perception leads to safer and more efficient robot deployments. According to FORT’s CEO, safety is essential for scaling robotic applications, and combining intelligent environmental awareness with AI-driven responses represents a step forward in making autonomous robots both safe and productive in human-centric workplaces.