No single sensor suits every area: AI cameras suit busy indoor areas because they recognise people and ignore racks and pallets, radar suits outdoor yards and dusty or dark areas, and ultrasonic suits short-range reversing. Cameras need a clear line of sight and adequate light. Radar detects any object and keeps working in dust, darkness and some weather, but it cannot tell a person from a post and tends to cause nuisance alarms in tight aisles. Ultrasonic sensors are low-cost and short-range, useful for slow manoeuvring, with the same object-versus-person limit. None of the three sees around corners.
The full guide is Forklift proximity detection technologies compared, which adds UWB, RFID and LiDAR to the comparison. The choice follows the environment. Indoors with mixed foot traffic, person recognition matters most. Outdoors, in freezers where lenses fog, or in dusty plants, radar may be more dependable even with more false alerts. Where trucks cross blind intersections, tag-based ranging or fixed intersection sensors cover what any truck-mounted line-of-sight sensor misses. Test candidates on your own trucks and aisles, and count false alerts per shift alongside detections. The camera systems page covers camera options in more detail.