Proxaut, the AGV tailor-made workshop where customized autonomous vehicles for goods handling are designed and built.
Proxaut is an Italian company founded in 1996 by Stefano Ballotti, and headquartered in Piumazzo di Castelfranco Emilia, in the province of Modena. Since June 2022, Proxaut has been part of the Middleby Food Processing Group, headquartered in the United States and with over 10,000 employees worldwide in 100 countries.
Middleby, a publicly traded company, is a global manufacturer of commercial kitchen equipment, residential appliances, and industrial systems for food processing, packaging, and cooking. With more than one hundred brands across three business segments—Food Processing, Foodservice and Beverage, and Residential—Middleby designs, manufactures, markets, and supports its customers and partners worldwide.
For over 28 years, Proxaut has been designing and manufacturing highly customized forklifts and AGVs for the handling and storage of goods.
Alongside this customer-specific product development, the company also offers a fleet of standard vehicles suitable for operating in warehouses and production facilities, including food processing facilities.
Thanks to the support of other Middleby brands, Proxaut is able to manage the entire process required to build AGV systems in-house, from mechanical, electrical, software, on-board machine design to system management.
Maximum attention is also paid to safety, which is implemented in compliance with the latest regulations.
Proxaut has always pursued a specific goal: the creation of highly customized, innovative vehicles with ad-hoc solutions capable of improving the productivity and safety of companies.
Proxaut vehicles
PROXAUT specializes in producing highly customized autonomous vehicles with and without forks, but also offers more standard products to provide a comprehensive service to its customers.
Based on their applications, PROXAUT AGVs can be divided into two macro-families that encompass unique possibilities and combinations.
Thanks to the use of laser, inertial, wire-guided, and hybrid navigation systems, missions can be ensured even in conditions of poor visibility, such as humidity, fog, salt-laden environments, etc.
All Proxaut-built forklifts and shuttles can be used both inside and outside plants, even in less than optimal weather conditions.
LH (Lifter) series vehicles: these are the vehicles most reminiscent of manned forklifts because they generally have forks. They are used to transfer goods on pallets, crates, platforms, tubs, etc. and can be finished in the iconic PROXAUT red or in AISI 304 food-grade stainless steel for operation within food production departments.
Special models have been created such as:
• AGV vehicles with double-sided forks (transfer of goods forward and to one side)
• AGV vehicles with three-sided forks (transfer of goods forward and to both sides)
• AGV vehicles without forks and with special equipment such as:
– single pole
– double pole
– gripper
– tipper
SH (Shuttle) series VEHICLES: these are vehicles normally called shuttles or mobile platforms because they can transport goods on their own platform.
These autonomous vehicles are also used to transfer goods within production departments, on pallets, roller conveyors, etc. and can be made of painted sheet metal or AISI 304 food-grade stainless steel to operate within food production departments.
One of the most widespread applications of these AGV systems is in the food processing sector, as they can easily navigate cold storage rooms at temperatures below -20°C, as well as curing and smoking rooms. These forkless forklifts from the SH (shuttle) series can also be equipped with refrigeration systems to transport goods and maintain the cold chain for refrigerated and frozen food products.
Contact our sales engineers for a consultation on how you can increase productivity and profits for your company:
