Some companies view their employees as an asset ; Amazon views them as a problem to be interrupt along the path to flawlessness ( and bum 2 - day shipping on paperbacks ) . The latest ambition is to replace Amazon’slegion of shelf - pick droneswith actual robotic droning .
Amazonalready expend robots from Kiva , a company it bolt up in 2012 , in some of its warehouses . They ’re basically a Roomba mated with a forklift — they get underneath ledge and drag them across the floor , reduce the distance employee have to walk . But there ’s no robot which can match a badly - motivate minimal - wage employee in the ability to stack shelf — a trouble Amazon is determined to fix .
As such , Amazon is host a competitor for shelf - picking automaton , with $ 25,000 going to the cagy bot . grant to the specs , it has to be able-bodied to locate products on a ledge , deplume them out of containers , and pack correctly into composition board transportation boxwood . This fabulously dim version of Robot Wars will take place at theInternational Conference on Robotics and Automationin Seattle in May .
Robotics has add up onleaps and bounds(quite literally ) in the last few year , with advancement in sensing element ironware and credit software do a pick golem actually practicable . Whether any company manages to ingrain Amazon enough to sprain its warehouse into complete Skynet supply dumps remains to be go through . [ MIT Technology Review ]
Image course credit : Getty
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