warehouses

CES, Robotics & AI

Robotic Forklifts to be Utilized by Walmart in Distribution Centers

As Walmart works to remain competitive, it’s taking a more piecemeal approach to automation, through partnerships with a range of different robotics firms. On Thursday, the mega-retailer announced a partnership with Fox Robotics, which brings 19 of the Austin-based startup’s robotic forklifts to its distribution centers. Today’s news follows a 16-month pilot, which found Walmart trialing the technology in Distribution Center 6020. DC 6020 is the place where Walmart began trials with Symbotic’s package sortation and retrieval technologies. Following that successful trial, Walmart announced plans to roll out the technology to all 42 of its Regional Distribution Centers — that was nearly double the original target of 25.

Zara Khan
April 11, 2024

Uncategorized

Introducing TruckBot: A Marvelous Machine

The past couple of years have gone from a few select companies to seemingly everyone in and around warehouse robotics looking to tackle the problem. And then there’s TruckBot. Instead, TruckBot sat atop a conveyer belt. In fact, TruckBot is actually part conveyer belt. “TruckBot is a game-changer for warehouses looking to streamline their operations and reduce costs,” the company notes.” The dock door is the largest bottleneck in our supply chain and unloading trailers is back-breaking work.

Ava Patel
March 13, 2024

Apps, Robotics & AI, Transportation

The Launch of Cypher’s Inventory Drone from an Autonomous Mobile Robot Base

The halls of Modex this week are lousy with solutions to the problem of inventory. Recent years have given us drone solutions and Dexory’s massive AMR (autonomous mobile robot) with a telescoping scaffolding structure. At its core is a tall (but not Dexory tall) AMR that serves as a launching and landing pad for a drone. You can’t really see it from the image I took, but the drone is actually tethered to the inside of the AMR platform. The Ottawa-based firm says the drone can operate for up to five hours before needing to return to the base for a recharge.