A Leap forward in industrial logistics
Unikie and Mantsinen Group, a Finnish material handling machinery and logistic services company, have developed a fully automated log transport solution for industrial needs. It can transport over 60 tons of logs in a single trip and operates automatically within the sawmill facility.
In this solution, Unikie Marshalling Solution operates all the movements of an AGV developed by Mantsinen, making transport safer, faster, and more efficient.
This is one of the world’s first solutions in which a heavy ground vehicle can move autonomously and safely among people and manually operated machines in an industrial environment.
About the Project
The goal of the project was to explore autonomous log transportation in an industrial setting. The aim was to develop a solution that could automatically transport logs from the train unloading area to the sawmill’s feed table at Metsä Group’s Rauma sawmill.
The solution is based on Unikie’s autonomous driving system, which uses sensors installed around the factory area to create a real-time digital twin of the environment. This system controls a ground vehicle developed by Mantsinen, capable of transporting log cages while monitoring surrounding activity. Operational safety was a key research focus due to the semi-open nature of the environment, where other vehicles and pedestrians may be present.
The concept was successfully tested in October 2025 at the Rauma sawmill by Unikie and Mantsinen. A real-world use case was tested by transporting full log cages to the unloading area and returning empty cages to the loading point. Safety was also tested successfully with a person entering the vehicle’s safety zone, and driving precision was validated with sub-10 cm accuracy when positioning repeatedly under the log cages.
See Demonstration
At Metsä Group’s Rauma sawmill, Unikie and Mantsinen successfully demonstrated a fully automated log transportation solution, a major leap forward in industrial logistics. See the demonstration video below.
