An industry first: Samsara provides AI safety to forklifts, off-highway equipment, and airport ground support

Equipment like forklifts, excavators, and bag tugs keeps physical operations moving in high-risk environments. On a busy cross-dock, forklifts weave between pallets, trailers, and people on foot at high speed, with little margin for error. On the ramp, belt loaders and bag tugs work inches from multimillion-dollar aircraft. On job sites, excavators swing through areas where crews work on foot. Operating this equipment also carries real risks. OSHA estimates that forklifts alone account for roughly 85 fatalities and 34,900 serious injuries in U.S. workplaces each year. 

A lack of visibility has been a key factor behind these risks. This equipment has never had a camera built to capture what happened on or around it. If an incident occurred, such as a forklift striking a coworker on the loading dock or a tug clipping an airplane, teams had to piece together what happened from witnesses, if they found out about it at all. 

For years, Samsara has helped physical operations become safer and more efficient. Today, Samsara is bringing that same value to equipment with Samsara for Equipment, a first-of-its-kind solution that combines AI-powered equipment safety and equipment monitoring with the Connected Operations Platform. The Samsara 360 Camera for Equipment (patent-pending) is the industry’s first single-mount, dual-fisheye lens, 360-degree AI camera built for operated equipment.  With the Samsara 360 Camera, forklifts, off-highway equipment like excavators and wheel loaders, and ground support equipment (GSE) like belt loaders and bag tugs, capture what happens on and around the equipment. Samsara AI, safety workflows, and agentic capabilities turn that visibility into action, and equipment monitoring helps cut fuel waste, protect uptime, and lower the total cost of ownership. Read on to learn how it works.

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Built with the crews who run the equipment

For years, customers have asked for equipment safety, but two challenges stood in the way of a lasting solution. First, much of this equipment operates with an open cab, which exposes a camera to rain, snow, dust, and freezing temperatures. Second, monitoring an operator takes a far wider field of view than a dash cam provides. A camera built for a cab only needs to see the driver's eyes and hands on a steering wheel that's always in the same place. 

That's why Samsara built the 360 Camera alongside operators at airports, warehouses, and job sites who live with these challenges. Every early demo surfaced the same feedback: an inward-facing camera angle wasn't enough. Teams needed to see the operator's hands and feet at the controls and what was happening around them: whether a belt loader was about to hit the aircraft, or whether someone was standing where they shouldn't be. With that feedback, the Samsara team developed a single-mount 360-degree camera so that teams can see the operator and everything around them in one view. Nearly a decade of shipping AI models on millions of Samsara AI Dash Cams, and more than 30 trillion data points from across the Samsara platform, made it possible to bring powerful AI models to the Samsara 360 Camera.

See every angle of risk with the Samsara 360 Camera

When something goes wrong on a piece of equipment, the cause is rarely visible from one angle. When a belt loader hits an airplane, was the brake engaged? Were the operator's hands on the controls? Was someone standing in the excavator's swing zone? Answering those questions takes a view of the operator and everything around them. 

With that feedback, the Samsara team built a single 360-degree camera. Surround-view systems for equipment typically stitch together four cameras, each with its own mount, cable, and point of failure. The 360 Camera does the same job with one module, so teams see the operator and everything around them in one view.  Samsara AI detections and coaching now cover operated equipment. For the first time, safety teams can coach equipment operators with the same workflows that have helped organizations reduce risky driving on the road. Here's how it works:

• See every angle of risk: AI detections flag mobile phone use, camera obstruction, seat and lap belt use, and harsh impacts, built on the AI behind Samsara AI Dash Cams and trained on how equipment is operated. A single 360-degree view captures the operator's hands and feet at the controls and who's standing nearby. The camera is built for open cabs and tough conditions: it's IP66-rated, operates from -40°F to 140°F (-40°C to 60°C), and keeps recording without a cellular, Wi-Fi, or GPS connection. It mounts on a cage, side pillar, or cab frame, out of the operator's way.

• Understand where risks are happening: See which operators, sites, and equipment types show repeat risky behavior, so managers can focus their time on the conversations that matter most. Coming soon, AI-powered ride-alongs will review real footage to assess how each operator handles the job, without a supervisor in the seat. When something does happen, every impact automatically pulls video into the Safety Inbox, and managers pan and zoom through the footage with the g-force graph lined up against it, so investigations close on evidence instead of competing accounts.

• Act before it happens again: Managers coach operators on their own footage instead of secondhand accounts. Teams can enforce zero-tolerance mobile phone policies, speed up OSHA investigations, and scale their safety program without adding headcount. Timestamped footage supports insurance claims and helps establish or clear liability quickly.

For organizations managing diverse fleets in fast-paced environments, visibility matters. Lineage Services, a global cold-chain and warehouse logistics company, is using the Samsara 360 Camera to extend safety across its operations and expects significant results. "The Samsara 360 Camera minimizes unverified customer claims drastically,” said John Cullen, General Manager. “Previously unprovable scenarios can now be validated with clear footage. The improved transparency not only boosts customer relationships, but also saves us $200,000+ annually through potential claims." 

Cut fuel waste, protect uptime, and get more from your equipment

Equipment is expensive to run and repair, and the wait to replace it can disrupt operations. With Samsara Equipment Monitoring, teams can use the same telemetry they rely on for vehicles to monitor equipment. It allows you to:

• Reduce idle time and fuel spend: See exactly how long each piece of equipment runs without working. Pair idle time with 360 Camera footage to understand why, whether it's a legitimate wait at the dock, for example, or equipment that was left running through a long break. Using this data, operations teams can coach operators and cut fuel costs.

• Keep equipment safe to operate: Schedule preventative maintenance on actual engine hours instead of the calendar, catch fault codes the moment they appear, and turn inspection defects into work orders automatically. A worn brake or failing hydraulic system on a forklift puts the operator and everyone around it at risk, so maintenance based on real usage takes unsafe equipment out of service before it hurts someone. Warranty tracking helps teams recover repair costs they would otherwise pay themselves.

• Maximize the return on every asset: Track utilization by engine hours, operator in seat, or movement to find the assets sitting idle and the ones being run too hard. Reallocate equipment across sites, retire what you don't need, and see how many forklifts actually run at the same time during peak hours before buying more. The result is a lower total cost of ownership and more return from every piece of equipment.

• Know where equipment is and who's using it: Live location and usage history help teams spot unauthorized use and recover equipment faster.

Leverage the power of the Samsara platform to put agents to work on every piece of equipment 

Most organizations that own trucks also own forklifts, loaders, and tugs, often from several manufacturers. OEM portals lock each brand into its own system, disconnected from the safety program teams already run on the road. Operated equipment lives in the same Samsara dashboard as the rest of the operation, so Samsara agents, Agent Studio, and automations work with it out of the box. Teams can build agents that schedule preventive maintenance, flag fault codes, and open work orders, with the same reporting across vehicles and equipment.

OEM portals, by contrast, lock each brand into its own system, disconnected from the safety program teams already run on the road. With Samsara, safety leaders get one view of risk from the warehouse floor to the highway. Safety leaders get one view of risk from the warehouse floor to the highway.

Get started with Samsara for Equipment

To learn more about how Samsara for Equipment, including the Samsara 360 Camera and Equipment Monitoring, can bring safety and visibility to your equipment today, contact your Samsara account representative or reach out to our team.