In the fast-paced world of film and television, whether you’re an indie filmmaker, a producer, or a distributor, speed is the name of the game. To efficiently dispatch products to customers, warehouse staff must be aware of the locations of all stored items within their facilities at all times. While seemingly obvious, misplaced or misallocated inventory remains a pervasive challenge in warehouses globally.
To overcome this limitation, Corvus Robotics has developed a cutting-edge inventory management platform that leverages autonomous drones to efficiently scan and track the vast arrays of pallets typically found in warehouses. The corporation’s drones operate around the clock, unaffected by warehouse lighting conditions, collaborating with human staff to provide an unparalleled perspective on inventory.
“When it comes to inventory management, some warehouses may opt for a labor-intensive process of conducting a full stock take every 12 months,” notes Corvus co-founder and CTO Mohammed Kabir ’21, “but we’re revolutionizing this approach by providing real-time updates as often as weekly or even daily.” “The tangible benefits of streamlined operations are substantial.”
Corvus currently serves distributors, logistics providers, manufacturers, and grocery retailers by tracking their inventory levels. Through this initiative, the corporation has successfully enabled prospects to comprehend the substantial benefits related to the efficiency and speed of their warehouse operations.
Corvus’s success hinges on developing an autonomous drone platform capable of operating effectively in challenging environments, such as warehouses where GPS signals are unreliable and Wi-Fi connectivity is limited – a feat achieved through the sole reliance on cameras and neural networks for navigation. The corporation is convinced that its drones hold immense potential to revolutionize warehousing processes by enabling unprecedented levels of accuracy when it comes to inventory management worldwide?
Since the age of 14, Kabir has devoted himself to exploring the world of drones.
“I’ve been enthusiastic about drones since before the drone industry was a reality,” Kabir states. I’d collaborate with individuals I uncovered online. Initially, this fledgling community consisted solely of amateur enthusiasts piecing together individual contributions in the hope that collectively they might form a functional whole.
In 2017, Kabir arrived at MIT, coincidentally the same year he received a message from his future Corvus co-founder, Jackie Wu, then a student at Northwestern University. Having witnessed several of Kabir’s innovations in drone navigation for GPS-denied environments as part of an open-source drone challenge, Wu was familiar with his expertise. Scholars endeavored to explore whether the work could serve as a catalyst for corporate inspiration.
As a student at MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kabir dedicated spare nights and weekends to developing Corvus’ technology alongside his academic pursuits? The founders’ initial approach involved leveraging existing drones and upgrading them with sensors and processing power. To achieve their goal of building drones with full-lifecycle autonomy, the team ultimately decided to start from scratch, abandoning off-the-shelf options that failed to meet their requirements for low-level control and entry points.
With Kabir’s dorm room in Simmons Corridor serving as his makeshift workshop, he meticulously built the initial drone prototype, then ventured outside to test each successive refinement against the open sky.
Kabir recalls the process: “We’d build drone prototypes, test their flight capabilities, then bring them back in to develop autonomy systems on top.”
While working on Corvus, Kabir co-founded the MIT Driverless program, which developed North America’s first competition-winning autonomous race cars.
Kabir notes that this development is simply another chapter in the overarching narrative of autonomy. “I’ve always been highly enthusiastic about designing robots that operate independently, without any human interaction.”
Since the inception, the founders envisioned significant potential in stock administration software as a natural extension of their expertise in drone technology. After months of preparation, they secured a state-of-the-art facility in Boston, transforming it into a realistic mock warehouse by installing rows of towering racks and numerous containers to hone their skills through hands-on experience.
By the time Kabir graduated in 2021, Corvus had successfully developed several pilots with promising futures. A leading buyer in the construction materials industry, MSI (Marazzi-Sielaff International), specializes in distributing a diverse range of products including flooring, countertops, tiles, and more. Rapidly, MSI was leveraging Corvus on a daily basis across multiple services within its extensive national network.
The Corvus One drone, touted as the world’s first fully autonomous warehouse inventory management drone by its manufacturer, features 14 cameras and a sophisticated AI system that empowers it to safely navigate and accurately scan barcodes to track the location of each item in real-time. Collected knowledge is typically shared with the shopper’s warehouse management system, usually synchronizing with the warehouse’s existing files, and any discovered discrepancies are consistently flagged for a suggested solution. With Corvus’s intuitive interface, users can effortlessly define custom no-fly zones, programme flight patterns, and automate flight schedules to suit their specific needs.
“When we embarked on this journey, the possibility of achieving lifelong vision-based autonomy in warehouses seemed like a distant dream,” Kabir reveals. While developing infrastructure-free autonomy in conjunction with traditional PC vision methods proves challenging, our team has achieved a pioneering feat by delivering a learning-based autonomy stack for an indoor aerial robotic utilizing machine learning and neural network-based approaches. “We’ve been pioneering AI adoption long before it became mainstream.”
Corvus’ team simply deploys docking stations at product rack extremities, serving as charging and information hubs after meticulously mapping each location using precision tape measures. The drones autonomously populate the specified coordinates with precise details. According to Kabir, it typically takes around two weeks for a facility spanning one million square feet to become fully operational.
“We shouldn’t arrange any stickers, reflectors, or beacons,” Kabir says. Our setup stands out for its speed, exceeding that of many alternative options available in the industry. “We’re pioneering ‘infrastructure-free autonomy’, a game-changing concept that sets us apart from the competition.”
Stock administration tasks are typically performed by an operator utilizing a forklift or scissor lift to scan barcodes and manually record data on a clipboard. The resulting rare and inaccurate stock checks often necessitate warehouse closures, disrupting ongoing operations.
As Kabir notes, workers are constantly moving between levels on the elevators, accompanied by the need to follow meticulous handbook guidelines. Acquiring knowledge through manual means is crucial; however, this process is often disconnected from the subsequent information-entry stage, as neither method is inherently linked. “What we’ve found is that numerous warehouses are driven by flawed information, and the only way to rectify this situation is to correct the data being compiled from the outset.”
Corvus enables the consolidation of stock administration methods and procedures in a single platform. Drones operate safely alongside people and forklifts every day.
Kabir notes that achieving that goal was a top priority for his team. As we step inside the warehouse, it’s an honor that the customer has bestowed upon us. We aim to minimize disruption to their normal functioning and design our approach around this principle. The drone is available for flight whenever you need it, with the scheduling system accommodating your desired timing.
Kabir asserts that Corvus offers the most comprehensive stock management solution available. The corporation plans to introduce enhanced end-to-end solutions for efficient inventory management upon receipt of goods at warehouses.
“Drones alone cannot fully address inventory shortages,” Kabir says. Although drones are used to track pallet stock on racks, a significant portion of items can still go missing before they even reach the storage area? Merchandise arrives, then it’s removed from the truck before being temporarily stacked on the floor, during which time items are prone to getting misplaced. A collection of forgotten photographs languishes in a dusty album, mislabelled, misplaced, and lost to the passage of time, their memories slowly fading away. Our mission is to unravel this complexity.
