Amazon Unveils New Robot that Can Pick Through Warehouse Bins

The bin-moving robots designed by Kiva Systems still form the foundation of Amazon’s warehouse robotics play a decade after it acquired the startup. There’s a reason — for example — that the recently announced fully autonomous Proteus robot effectively looks like a green (“Seahawks green,” per robotics VP, Joseph Quinlivan) version of one of those systems. Over the years, the retail giant has broadened the scope of its warehouse ‘bots — hundreds of thousands of them now occupy fulfillment centers across the U.S.

As one might imagine, robot arms are a big piece of that puzzle. Robin (which debuted 18 months ago) and Cardinal (which rolls out this year) are the two most prominent examples, both designed to move packages and send them on their way inside the warehouse. Cardinal is effectively an update to Robin that’s able to pack boxes full of packages. There are currently around 1,000 Robin units deployed in Amazon warehouses.

At an event held in its Westborough, Massachusetts robotics center (about 40 minutes from downtown Boston), the company added a third bird into the mix: Sparrow.

Read the source article at techcrunch.com