Amazon has announced a major breakthrough in warehouse automation with the launch of Vulcan, a new robot equipped with a sense of touch, capable of handling around 75% of items in the company’s vast fulfilment network.
Unveiled at the retailer’s “Delivering the Future” event in Dortmund, Germany, Vulcan represents what Amazon calls a “fundamental leap forward in robotics”, with AI-powered tactile sensing that allows it to identify and handle items based on what they feel like, not just how they look.
“It’s not just seeing the world, it’s feeling it,” said Aaron Parness, Amazon’s director of robotics. “Enabling capabilities that were impossible for Amazon robots until now.”
Unlike previous robots in Amazon’s fleet, which rely on suction cups and computer vision to move items, Vulcan’s ability to “feel” enables it to pick up and sort a wider range of products, and store them on upper and lower shelves, reducing the need for humans to climb ladders or bend frequently.
Vulcan will join Amazon’s growing army of warehouse robots — now numbering more than 750,000 — designed to work alongside humans at picking stations. The company says these innovations are intended to improve efficiency and safety, not to replace human workers entirely.
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