Without mentioning Amazon, you can't discuss fulfillmentrobots. The retail powerhouse has become the 800-pound gorilla thanks to several key acquisitions and seemingly endless resources. While warehouse robotics and automation have been accelerated, Amazon has been the leader in these categories for a long time.
The company celebrated a decade of its robotic division at its annual Re:Mars conference in Las Vegas. Amazon has deployed more than 520,000 robotic drive units over the course of its existence. It has been a great success for the company in pushing for same- and next-day package delivery, as well as the competition looking for their own third-party robotic solutions.
At today's event, the head of Amazon Robotics gave a glimpse at what the future will look like. Two new robots, Proteus and Cardinal, are at the center of the news. The shelf/cell system has been in place for a long time.
Proteus is able to make decisions on the floor. In a post on the company's website.
Proteus autonomously moves through our facilities using advanced safety, perception, and navigation technology developed by Amazon. The robot was built to be automatically directed to perform its work and move around employees—meaning it has no need to be confined to restricted areas. It can operate in a manner that augments simple, safe interaction between technology and people—opening up a broader range of possible uses to help our employees—such as the lifting and movement of GoCarts, the non-automated, wheeled transports used to move packages through our facilities.
I would guess that Proteus is the result of the company's acquisition of Canvas. I mentioned at the time thatCanvas brings its own built-in safety with its vision system. The hardware is meant to interact with workers on the floor. It would be easy for the company to adopt the technology for some of its systems.
The image was created by Amazon.
From the looks of it, some of that Canvas technology was integrated into a Kiva form factor, so these robots can work with Amazon's existing systems. The ability to operate in less controlled environments is what the additional autonomy brings, which means the technology can be implemented into other environments.
The company has something to say.
Proteus will initially be deployed in the outbound GoCart handling areas in our fulfillment centers and sort centers. Our vision is to automate GoCart handling throughout the network, which will help reduce the need for people to manually move heavy objects through our facility and instead let them focus on more rewarding work.
Cardinal is a robotic work cell that sort heavy packages during the shipping process. The company is testing a pilot of the system and expects to have it in its facilities next year.
The Amazon robotic identification system was demoed on the stage. Employees can input packages using natural movements with the device. The company notes, "AR ID removes the manual scanning process by using a unique camera system that runs at 120 frames persecond, giving employees greater mobility and helping reduce the risk of injury."
Another arm-based system is used. It is a large, mobile, shelf-based system that uses the arm to retrieve containers. The Containerized Storage System puts employees in a safer and more ergonomics position through a highly choreographed dance of robotic and software.
The integration Amazon has managed across a range of different tasks is the most interesting thing to see. Even though Amazon has the advantage of being able to develop its own systems for its own warehouse, it will be hard for smaller companies to keep up.
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