Amazon unveils its first fully autonomous mobile robot
Amazon unveils yet another technological masterpiece.
As a well-known American multinational technology company, it is involved in several digital activities. These include digital streaming, e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. It has also been referred to as “one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world”.
In 2012, this empire acquired a robotics startup called Kiva Systems which cost a whopping sum of $775 million.
Amazon is also set to do more. It has revealed many prototypes powered by artificial intelligence and computer-vision algorithms. These prototypes range from robotic grippers to moving storage systems.
All these have been put together over the past decade and it is really to help do hard jobs like lift, scan and carry items more easily.
Some of these pprototypes include;
PROTEUS
This machine is disk-shaped and with its wheels, it bears resemblance to a Roomba. It is safe to use and it operates by carefully placing itself under a cart that has packages. It then pushes these carts across the factory floor, to where it should be.
According to Amazon, Proteus was designed to work alongside humans. Amazon hopes that the robot will help reduce the risk of workers getting injured, as it can perform repetitive tasks.
Proteus just needs to go under the cart and lift it then it turns it the way it should go, and that settles it; it moves the cart to the designated location. Also, it stops if it notices that something or someone is standing in its way. It has a green light that it uses to navigate its way around and is worker-friendly.
According to the cloud titan,
“the movement of heavy packages, as well as the reduction of twisting and turning motions by employees, are areas we continually look to automate to help reduce risk of injury”.
Cardinal
Amazon also unveiled another robot called Cardinal. Cardinal is a mechanical arm and it has an array of grippers at one of its ends. Just like Proteus, it is for reducing risk factors and labour costs.
According to reports, cardinal also has AI and computer vision. Unlike Proteus which pushes packages across the factory floor, Cardinal is used to place packages on carts. How does it do this? It reads the labels on packages, lifts the packages, and places them on the right carts.
For now, Cardinal has a size and weight limit of packages it can lift, but engineers are working on developing a higher version of it that can lift packages of up to 50 pounds (22.7kg).
All the same, Cardinal proves to be a much-needed machine that will reduce stress and risks for workers. Amazon hopes that by next year, it can mount Cardinal machines in fulfillment centres.
In Conclusion
All this progress by Amazon can be a motivation and an inspiration for African tech startups. It can inspire them to push till they get to the points they want to reach, looking at the big picture. Beyond producing machines, it can also inspire them to keep aiming for big things and working towards them.
To wrap this up, we’ll add that Amazon has made it clear that these machines are not made to replace humans. Rather, they are made to work safely and harmoniously with humans to deliver to customers more effectively.
