Per WSJ, humanoid robots are on their way to warehouses. Agility Robotics and Boston Dynamics are among those companies designing robots more closely modeled after human beings for use in distribution centers. They are being engineered to walk around warehouses, reach items high on shelves and crouch to put things down and pick up and move boxes. Robot developers indicate that their devices will help warehouse operators address labor shortages and eliminate the need to redesign warehouses to match robot capabilities.
Agility Robotics, which has received funding from Amazon, has a human-shaped robot named Digit that has white animated eyes. It is 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs 141 pounds, and can carry up to 35 pounds. The robot is designed to move around existing infrastructure, support existing workflows and perform tasks such as loading and unloading storage containers.
Boston Dynamics, majority owned by Hyundai, unveiled a robot named Stretch in 2021. It has a broad base to keep the device steady and a battery that lasts 16 hours per charge. With a single arm, Stretch looks more like an industrial engineer’s version of a warehouse worker than a humanoid robot, but its combination of mobility and handling capability led DHL to start rolling out Stretch robots this year to take packages from trailers and onto a conveyor at several of its U.S. warehouses.
Some companies, looking to address labor shortages and rising labor costs, are also building warehouses that are entirely automated, known in the logistics sector as dark warehouses. That level of automation often requires new construction and can cost tens of millions of dollars. British company Ocado Group has built several automated fulfillment centers that use robotics to move bins across a grid system without aisles for human workers to walk through.
MOSIMTEC is often asked to evaluate automation initiatives and develop control algorithms, test sequencing rules, and stress-test the ‘whole system’ under various demand profiles to predict performance and identify risks/bottlenecks. Using simulation modeling to compare an autonomous mobile robot system versus adding labor while factoring in capacity, productivity, downtime, charging time, labor cost, etc. is critical to know if robots are the right fit. MOSIMTEC data scientists and industrial engineers can help you future-proof your business.
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Read More: https://www.wsj.com/articles/robots-are-looking-to-bring-a-human-touch-to-warehouses-52a3dc6c