Pages with tag Robotics

Amazon's amazing warehouse robots automate assembling your purchases for shipping

Modern business corporate mantra seeks to automate everything, eliminating the costs of human employees. Artificial intelligence and robotics have combined in Amazon's warehouse facilities to create an automated order fulfillment system.

Stored items are held in modular shelving units. The robots drive themselves around the warehouse, following markers on the floor, and slide underneath the shelving unit they are to move. The top of the robot lifts the shelving unit off the ground, and drives off carrying the shelves. The robot then has to make its way through the warehouse, dodging through the mulling crowd of other robots carrying other shelving units, until it arrives in the shipping area. Rather than human-driven forklifts, these robots perform the same task.

Humans have in front of them a screen showing the Amazon order they're assembling. The human picks what's needed off the shelving unit, and the robot drives off to return that unit back to the warehouse, while the human finalizes assembling the order.

The system lets Amazon store more stuff per square feet of warehouse space. Amazon can speed up order processing and this is how Amazon has begun to offer same-day-delivery.
Romanian tech lab, Modulab, develops autonomous disinfection robot amid Coronavirus worries With the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic well underway we all face a challenge of protection against a disease where only a small number of people have immunity. A technology team in Romania has developed an autonomous robot capable of disinfecting an area regardless of what pathogen is present, meaning it is useful not only for COVID-19 but for any other similar disease in the future. The new robot is the teams first prototype, and they are aiming to develop it further, and to find interested agencies who want to buy copies.
Scary exciting research into robotically controlled beetles Scientists in Singapore have worked out the muscle structures in common beetles, and methods to electrically control the muscles using a computer. The result is a kind of robot made from a biological organism which can be remotely controlled to perform certain tasks. But, what of the free will of the controlled creature? But, what could go wrong on this slippery slope?