Amazon introduced a new warehouse-centered robot last week, which can carefully manipulate a wide range of objects. Dubbed vulcan, the new section of the robot has force feedback sensors that allow it to understand the amount of force that applied when choosing an object or pushing the cart. These robots will be used globally in the fulfillment centers of tech giants and are designed to assist human workers. Amazon said that these robots have created hundreds of new categories of human jobs in warehouses.
Amazon’s vulcan robots come close to human skill
In a news room PostSeattle -based tech veteran introduced the Vulcan and highlighted his abilities. The new robots solve a significant problem in automating the supply centers of Amazon – the robots are numb and dumb. “In the past, when industrial robots have unexpected contact, they either stop or smash emergency through that contact. They often do not even know that they have hit something because they can’t understand it,” Aaron Perurence, Director, Applied Science, Amazon said.
The company highlighted that the vulcan, which is made using advances in robotics, engineering and physical AI, comes with dedicated force feedback sensors. It has also been applied with a camera and a suction cup. The entire assembly uses both the sensor-based object detection as well as computer vision to apply.
The ruler of the Valcan robot with the camera and the suction cup
Amazon’s inventory in its fulfillment centers follows a specific arrangement to make storage shipping and sting easier. The inventory is stored in a pod covered with cloth which are divided into coaches. Each compartment has 10 different items. Most robots struggle to choose the objects from this mixture of objects, but the vulcan is asked to be able to navigate through a crowded place to be able to carefully choose the essential item.
Amazon said that Vulcan can choose about 75 percent of the company’s items at its fulfillment centers and with speed compared to their front-line employees, Amazon said. Currently, the vulcan robots are being tested at their supply centers in Spochen, Washington and Hamburg, Germany.
Amazon said that currently it has deployed more than 7,50,000 robots in its supply centers. The company was also in a hurry to note that this large number of robots have also created new categories of jobs, such as robotics floor monitor and on-site credibility maintenance engineer. Tech giants are also giving training programs to their human workers to go into robotics and find a place in an industry that is quickly taking automation routes.