Amazon is opening new automation alternatives by deploying its first robots that leverage pressure and contact sensing to enhance materials dealing with duties.
One of many basic functions for robots at Amazon warehouses is centered across the “items to individual” (G2P) resolution with the Kiva robots. The Kiva cell robots current movable cabinets, stocked with stock, to a stationary human picker. The human affiliate picks a selected merchandise for a selected buyer order and singulates it for cargo.
Over time, the cabinets are depleted of stock and should be replenished. The replenishment process is at present carried out manually. To automate the replenishment process, Amazon developed a brand new robotic known as Vulcan, designed to select gadgets from bulk and place them onto the movable cabinets.
What makes Vulcan distinctive is that it’s geared up with pressure suggestions sensors and AI, giving it a way of contact. This “sense of contact” permits Vulcan to govern objects with larger precision and dexterity. Based on Amazon, Vulcan can choose and stow roughly 75% of the gadgets in Amazon warehouses, shifting them at speeds similar to human employees.
The robotic’s capabilities are anticipated to enhance operational effectivity, office security, and scale back bodily demanding duties for human workers. Vulcan’s end-of-arm tooling and sensors allow it to handle a variety of merchandise, from small devices to bigger gadgets, by making use of the suitable quantity of pressure.
Vulcan makes use of an arm, digital camera and suction cup gripper to select gadgets from storage pods. | Credit score: Amazon Robotics
Aaron Parness, Director of Utilized Science at Amazon Robotics, joined Steve Crowe, Govt Editor of The Robotic Report, to debate the know-how behind Vulcan throughout a keynote throughout final week’s Robotics Summit and Expo in Boston. Parness defined the significance of contact and pressure sensing to the way forward for robotics at Amazon.
Parness’ crew has stated “pressure is the language of manipulation.”
“[Force sensing] is important to how we work together with the world. It’s one of many large limitations in our discipline proper now,” Parness stated throughout his Robotics Summit keynote. “In the event you take a look at mobility, robots are doing again flips, however manipulation continues to be a really unsolved problem. We get confused generally between digital intelligence and bodily intelligence. We’re rightly impressed when robots beat grand masters at chess. They’re superb at enjoying chess, however robots nonetheless sort of suck at shifting the items on the board. And that’s the bodily intelligence. That’s the place [the people in this room have] a number of alternative to make advances.”
Aaron Parness (left) mentioned how pressure sensing improves robotic manipulation at Robotics Summit & Expo 2025. Credit score: Jeff Pinette
Parness believes stated there are a selection of recent functions that might be enabled by contact. This contains densely placing gadgets right into a padded mailer, dealing with groceries, and placing packages into supply baggage. These are issues the place you could have a whole lot of bodily contact, the place you want the subsequent wave of robotics.
“[A sense of touch] permits us to go quicker so we don’t need to be as cautious, as a result of we will transfer shortly after which reply after we make contact, versus watching and watching and watching,” Parness stated at Robotics Summit. “And it’s a quicker response fee. It additionally permits us to fill the bins to the next stage of progress dice as a result of we will compress gadgets. You possibly can squeeze the pillow or the t-shirt over to the aspect. You possibly can’t know that forward of time all the time. So it is advisable to have that pressure suggestions to know if what you’re pushing on is inflexible or compliant.
“It additionally helps us keep away from damaging gadgets and dropping gadgets. It helps us with merchandise eligibility. You don’t grip a physics textbook that’s very heavy with the identical quantity of pressure as you do a skinny cardboard field that’s acquired some medication in it. So it’s a part of all the things we do. I had an previous mentor at NASA JPL, Brett Kennedy, who used to say industrial robots 1.0 have been dumb and numb. They didn’t really feel something, they usually didn’t have a mind.
“That’s OK for lots of duties, proper? If you’re welding a robotic, you are able to do that uninteresting, harmful, soiled, repetitive process with no need to really feel the world. However we wish them to work together in extremely cluttered environments. You must see my children play space. If we wish to kind by that pile of junk, you need to have a way of contact. That’s my basic speculation.”
Amazon at present has plenty of different robotic selecting functions deployed. Sparrow is at present selecting from totes, nevertheless it solely picks from the highest layer of the totes. Sparrow has a whole lot of intelligence to determine the gadgets and plan the trajectories, nevertheless it (at present) doesn’t require a way of contact.
Amazon has one other robotic known as Cardinal, designed to fill a cart with packages. The important thing for Cardinal is to get the cart as full as potential. Parness believes Cardinal may benefit from a way of contact to assist it maximize the cart load sooner or later.
Vulcan goals to automate the stowing of things in higher bin rows, that are arduous for folks to entry, in keeping with Parness. This concentrate on the highest rows means human employees would primarily stow gadgets on mid-level cabinets, the “energy zone,” doubtlessly decreasing employee accidents, Parness famous. Amazon’s damage charges have traditionally been larger in comparison with different warehouses, though the corporate states these charges have decreased significantly.
Vulcan represents the primary of the low-hanging fruit functions for higher pressure and contact sensing. The Amazon robotics crew developed their understanding of contact sensing integration with the Vulcan growth and is now trying to broaden this to different goal functions within the warehouse.
For now, Vulcan is simply in full operation at Amazon’s warehouses in Spokane, Washington, and Hamburg, Germany.
