{"id":988,"date":"2019-12-13T00:05:25","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T00:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/2019\/12\/13\/amazon-robotics-unveils-two-new-breeds-of-robots-for-fulfillment-centers-geekwire\/"},"modified":"2019-12-13T00:05:25","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T00:05:25","slug":"amazon-robotics-unveils-two-new-breeds-of-robots-for-fulfillment-centers-geekwire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/2019\/12\/13\/amazon-robotics-unveils-two-new-breeds-of-robots-for-fulfillment-centers-geekwire\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Robotics unveils two new breeds of robots for fulfillment centers \u2013 GeekWire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_502980\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-502980\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-502980\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190605-brad-630x439.jpg\" alt=\"Brad Porter\" width=\"630\" height=\"439\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190605-brad-630x439.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190605-brad-768x535.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190605-brad-1260x878.jpg 1260w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"\/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-502980\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brad Porter, vice president of robotics at Amazon, introduces new breeds of robots at the re:MARS conference in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>LAS VEGAS \u2014 Amazon says there are now 200,000 robots working alongside 300,000 people at its distribution facilities around the world, and there\u2019s more to come.<\/p>\n<p>Brad Porter, vice president of robotics at Amazon, took the virtual wraps off two new types of robots during today\u2019s keynote session at the first-ever re:MARS conference here in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n<p>One type, code-named Pegasus, is built to sort packages. As described in an <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.aboutamazon.com\/operations\/new-robots-new-jobs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Amazon blog post<\/a>, each 3-foot-wide robot is equipped with a conveyor belt on top to drop the right box in the right location.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe sort billions of packages a year,\u201d Porter said. \u201cThe challenge in package sortation is, how do you do it quickly and accurately? In a world of Prime one-day [delivery], accuracy is super-important. If you drop a package off a conveyor, lose track of it for a few hours\u00a0 \u2014 or worse, you mis-sort it to the wrong destination, or even worse, if you drop it and damage the package and the inventory inside \u2014 we can\u2019t make that customer promise anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Porter said Pegasus robots have already driven a total of 2 million miles, and have reduced the number of wrongly sorted packages by 50 percent.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4MH7LSLK8Dk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The other type of robot, called Xanthus, represents the latest incarnation of Amazon\u2019s drive robot. The online retailer uses tens of thousands of the current-generation robot, known as Hercules, in its fulfillment centers.<\/p>\n<p>Porter repeatedly emphasized that the chief role of Amazon\u2019s robots is to make things easier for human workers. For example, he noted that the company\u2019s robotic palletizers have lifted more than 2 billion pounds over the course of their use, \u201cmaking jobs easier and safer for our associates.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were excited to roll out last year our robotic tech vest, which allows associates to walk safely onto the robotic floor, confident that the drive units will detect them and move out of their way,\u201d Porter said.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, an Amazon patent application <a href=\"https:\/\/www.geekwire.com\/2018\/years-patenting-concept-amazon-admits-putting-workers-cage-bad-idea\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">created a stir<\/a> by suggesting that workers in fulfillment centers could move around the floor in cagelike contraptions to avoid running afoul of the robots. At the time, Amazon executive Dave Clark said the tech vest was a \u201cfar better solution.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n  {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n  if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n  n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n  s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n  'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n  fbq('init', '451545185034187');\n  fbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><script async defer src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.geekwire.com\/2019\/amazon-robotics-unveils-two-new-breeds-robots-fulfillment-centers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] Brad Porter, vice president of robotics at Amazon, introduces new breeds of robots at the re:MARS conference in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle) LAS VEGAS \u2014 Amazon says there are now 200,000 robots working alongside 300,000 people at its distribution facilities around the world, and there\u2019s more to come. Brad Porter, vice [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-robotics"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/e928cfdc7rs.exactdn.com\/info\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/12\/Amazon-Robotics-unveils-two-new-breeds-of-robots-for-fulfillment-scaled.jpg?strip=all","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2TFCd-fW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielparente.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}