Handling Exceptions and Irregular Loads

Warehouses are messy, dynamic, and unpredictable. The J1600 is designed around that fact: instead of treating every irregularity as a system error, it keeps a person in the loop who handles exceptions in seconds. This page lists the situations where the human half of dual mode does its best work.

The exception list

1. Damaged pallets. A broken bottom board or protruding nail is spotted before it becomes a safety hazard or a jam.
2. Unstable loads. A top-heavy, leaning, or poorly stacked load gets a judgment call before lifting — and manual handling if needed. See Sensitive or Unstable Loads.
3. Plastic-wrap snags. A loose shrink-wrap tail is seen and tucked away before it catches a rack or doorframe.
4. Misplaced pallets. A pallet that is not exactly where the system expects is found by looking around — not reported as an error and abandoned.
5. Damaged goods. Leaks and crushed corners are caught before delivery to a customer or a production line.
6. Steep dock plates. Bumps, slopes, and trailer misalignment are manual work: automatic-mode gradeability is 0%, while manual mode handles up to 5% unloaded and 3% at full load. See Inbound Receiving.
7. Crowded floors. An overflowing or cluttered area is crossed by improvising a safe route manually. See Operation in Crowded Environments.
8. Urgent reprioritization. When a production line is starving, the operator redirects immediately — no queue, no ticket. See Production Supply.
9. Route and layout changes. A new point is taught by driving there and tapping Save location — see Temporary Location Setup.
10. Avoiding automation overhead. Exceptions are the reason full automation gets expensive; handling them manually is what keeps the J1600 simple. The design targets up to 80% of the repetitive-transport gain without the integration burden.

These are the company's design arguments — advocacy examples rather than comparative test results — and they explain the division of work in human-in-the-loop automation.

How takeover actually works

Exception handling relies on the handover being effortless in both directions:

• To manual: grab or move the tiller and the vehicle is immediately under manual control. Emergency-stop buttons, tiller-position switches, and the key switch (power off / manual only / automatic) are always available. See how J1600 safety works.
• Back to autonomous: once the exception is cleared, select the task, confirm with the start button, and step away. See Manual Pickup and Autonomous Delivery and Mixed Manual and Autonomous Work.

Irregular loads within the rules

Irregular is fine; incompatible is not. Whatever the exception, loads must stay within the hard limits: 1,600 kg maximum payload, open-base carrier within 1,250 × 1,250 mm including overhang, load height up to 1,700 mm. Carriers outside the envelope are not a judgment call — see Open Cages and Alternative Load Carriers.