Amazon has introduced a robot with a sense of touch that will be capable of holding and lifting a host of items in its warehouse. The robot named Vulcan, Amazon claims, has made a ‘fundamental leap in robotics’. The new robot has been launched at Amazon’s “Delivering the Future” event in Dortmund, Germany. Reportedly, the robot will be deployed worldwide in the next few years and has been designed to assist humans to perform tasks such as sorting items for storage and preparing them for delivery.
Until now, robotics has been able to make some stellar accomplishments, such as beating humans in chess masters, driving cars, and cleaning and ironing along with other chores. While robotics have progressed in terms of physical agility, the sense of touch has been missing. According to Aaron Parness, Amazon director of applied science, typical robots that work in commercial settings are “numb and dumb”.
“In the past, when industrial robots have had unexpected contact, they either emergency stop or smash through that contact. They often don’t even know they have hit something because they cannot sense it,” he said. Parness said that the robot being introduced by Amazon is neither numb nor dumb and that it is built on key advances in robotics, engineering, and physical AI. “Vulcan is our first robot with a sense of touch,” Parness said in an official release.
According to Parness, Vulcan is not just seeing the world; it is feeling it, enabling capabilities that were impossible for Amazon robots until now. He added that Vulcan was already changing the way Amazon was operating at its fulfillment centres and is helping its employees make jobs safer and easier while moving customer orders more efficiently.
Vulcan is not Amazon’s first robot that can pick things up. The company’s Sparrow, Cardinal, and Robin systems use computer vision and suction cups to grab objects or packages. Meanwhile, Proteus, Titan, and Hercules systems lift and haul carts of goods around our fulfilment centres. However, with its sense of touch, especially its ability to understand when and how it makes contact with an object, Vulcan is showing new ways to improve operation jobs.
How do Amazon facilities use Vulcan?
Amazon, in its official release, said that in order to maximise its efficiency, they store inventory in fabric-covered pods that are divided into compartments of about a foot square. Each of these pods can hold up to 10 items on average. The company acknowledges that picking one out of the crowded space has been challenging for robots, considering they lack the dexterity of humans.
Amazon said that Vulcan can easily manipulate objects within those compartments to make room for whatever it is stowing. This is possible, as it is aware when it makes contact and how much force it is applying and can stop short of doing any damage. The robot does an ‘end of arm tooling’ technique that forces feedback sensors that inform how hard it is pushing or how firmly it is holding something.
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The company said Vulcan has demonstrated the ability to pick and stow approximately 75 per cent of various types of items at the fulfilment centres. It has speeds comparable to front-line employees. The robot is capable of identifying and moving specific items and can even ask a human partner to tag in. The e-commerce giant claims that Vulcan brings the best of what technology and its employees can achieve by working together.
In over a decade, Amazon has deployed over 750,000 robots into its fulfillment centres, and all of these are designed to help employees work safely and efficiently.
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