Credit by- Amazon
Amazon employees have long worked alongside robots—but the company is now testing a very lifelike, two-legged machine to help its human co-workers with some tasks.
Amazon reported Wednesday it had started testing a bipedal robot in its BFI1 trial office in Sumner, Washington. The robot is in the beginning phases of improvement, Amazon said, so it'll be some time before it is on functional stockroom floors.
The robot, named Digit, has two arms, two legs, a blue chest and two square lights for eyes. It pushes ahead and in reverse, pivots, and twists. It can reach, snatch and lift Amazon's unmistakable yellow sacks that hold things as they travel through Amazon stockrooms. Digit will assist its human partners with carry reusing, Amazon expressed, getting and moving void sacks once all things have been eliminated.
Digit's introduction was one of a few declarations Amazon made Wednesday at the organization's Conveying the Future occasion, a yearly gathering of updates to Amazon's transportation, conveyance and satisfaction organization. Amazon held the occasion at BFI1, one of its modest bunch of stockrooms in Sumner, where it tests new innovation, hardware and work processes. The Sumner bunch of offices incorporates exploratory distribution centers as well as functional destinations.
Amazon reported it would start conveying meds through drone in certain urban areas and grow its robot conveyance project — Prime Air — to Italy and the Unified Realm in 2024. It disclosed another kind of automated framework at work in Houston that utilizes mechanical arms to pick totes loaded up with things, as opposed to requesting that representatives select a thing from cubbies in yellow capacity racks.
To make Digit, Amazon cooperated with Deftness Advanced mechanics, an innovation organization situated in Oregon that spotlights on coordinated operations and stockroom conditions.
Inquired as to whether representatives would track down the humanlike robot "frightening," Emily Vetterick, overseer of innovative work for Amazon Advanced mechanics, said, "that is the reason we test — to get that input."
Work Seafty
Recently, Amazon also introduced a new robotic system that would change the way the company containerized and moved items through its warehouses.
Right now, Amazon uses large yellow storage racks to move items around. The racks have cubbies for employees to either pack items into or take items out of to fulfill orders. The racks move through the warehouse using autonomous robotic drives that sit underneath the storage bins.
Its new system—dubbed Sequoia—would instead use storage racks filled with yellow or blue totes. Robotic arms would grab totes from racks and deposit them at employees' workstations, rather than having humans grab items directly from storage cubbies.
The new system, Amazon said, will improve worker safety by delivering items within employees' "power zones"—the area between mid-thigh and mid-chest. Working in the "power zone" reduces how often workers have to reach above their heads or squat to reach items.
The current yellow storage racks can require workers to climb a step ladder with two or three shelves to reach the top rung, or bend down to about 8 inches above the ground to reach the lowest shelf.
"Amazon Robotics has really pioneered the idea of goods to people," Rain Wang, a senior technical product manager at Amazon Robotics, said on a tour of Amazon's BFI1 warehouse featuring the new system. "With Sequoia, we're able to make a functional improvement to employee safety."
Sequoia would not replace all of the storage racks, Wang said. Only some Amazon sites would qualify for the new robotic system, and it's not yet clear which those will be.
The company has been under fire for years over the injury rates at its warehouses, particularly for musculoskeletal injuries, a type of injury caused by repetitive motions like reaching, squatting, pushing and pulling. In one inspection of Amazon's warehouse in DuPont, Washington, an ergonomist with the state's Department of Labor and Industries found nearly a third of Amazon workers who developed musculoskeletal disorders were off the job for at least 100 days, according to data from 2006 to 2018.
Federal workplace regulators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited seven Amazon warehouses this year for unsafe working conditions, and have 20 open investigations into other facilities. Washington's department issued five citations to four warehouses for similar reasons. In Spokane, the most recent warehouse L&I cited, regulators found employees filed more than 400 workers' compensation claims for work-related musculoskeletal disorders in the three years since the facility opened.
In Washington, Amazon and L&I are weeks into a months-long trial to determine if the company put workers at risk and should be compelled to make changes to those warehouses.
Amazon has appealed the citations and says its investment in technology and training have made its warehouses safer. On Wednesday, Amazon said automation and robotics have made an impact on worker safety, citing company data from 2022 that showed recordable incident rates were 15% lower at Amazon Robotics sites than non-robotic sites.
The organization says it has 750,000 robots in its organization of stockrooms.
Scott Dresser, the VP of Amazon Mechanical technology, said in a meeting Wednesday the new mechanical technology frameworks are not a reaction to uplifted administrative strain.
"This is stuff we've been chipping away at for far past a portion of the investigation we've seen as of late," Dresser said. Laborer security is "just rationally something that we ponder while creating advanced mechanics."
Sequoia — with its overhauled representative workstations zeroed in on the "power zone" — is working at Amazon's distribution center in Houston to assist with the Christmas season, Wang said. Digit — which would assist with facilitating the exceptionally dreary movement of changing out a sack after it has been vacant — is still in testing in Sumner.
More Delivery by Air
Amazon likewise declared it will grow its robot conveyance task to clients in Italy, the Unified Realm and a third, undisclosed U.S. area in late 2024.
Amazon sent off Prime Air, its robot conveyance framework, in June 2022 to offer clients a quick option in contrast to heading to the store for a few explicit things, similar to batteries or cold medication. The present moment, drones are making conveyances to Prime clients in two areas: School Station, Texas, and Lockeford, California.
David Carbon, VP of Prime Air, said Wednesday that Amazon would add three new areas toward the following year's end. The new U.S. area would be uncovered "before very long," Carbon said.
Beginning in mid-2024, Amazon additionally plans to coordinate its robot conveyance project with a portion of its equivalent day-conveyance offices in the U.S. where Amazon stores well known things to convey the day clients get them. Amazon reported recently it intends to twofold the quantity of same-day-conveyance offices in the U.S. before very long," "part of its push to make a regionalized conveyance network that stores things near clients and velocities up conveyance times.
One year from now, some equivalent day-conveyance offices will drop-off things by drone similarly they'd make a conveyance in a van, Amazon declared Wednesday.
"Same day and Prime Air simply appear to be legit," Carbon said.
In the mean time, Amazon has additionally carried out drone conveyance for a meds from Amazon Drug store to qualified clients in School Station, Texas, the organization declared Wednesday.
"Amazon will be taking physician recommended prescription conveyance straightforwardly higher than ever," John Love, VP of Amazon Drug store, said. The conveyances ought to take under an hour, and Amazon desires to "grow to extra urban areas," Love added.
Prime Air is likewise trying a better approach to make conveyances to high rises, Carbon expressed, searching for an answer for clients who don't have a yard where the robot can securely drop a thing. The organization has been trying shared drop-off areas for occupants in condos in School Station.
Since its send off, Prime Air's robots have experienced a couple of accidents and the task has confronted analysis over security concerns. Cheddi Skeete, a previous program chief, sued Amazon in January over allegations that the robot program was perilous and claims that he was terminated for raising worries.
On Wednesday, Carbon underscored that Amazon's Great Air would be created and held to similar security principles involved by business aviation producers in Europe and the US. Amazon's security cases will be surveyed by "aviation controllers everywhere," Carbon said, "and demonstrated to be right."
When Prime Air carries out rambles in the new areas, it will likewise convey a refreshed model of the machine, Jason Patrao, overseer of designing for Prime Air, said in a meeting.
The new model, the MK30, will be 40% calmer than past emphasess, will actually want to work in a bigger scope of temperatures as well as in light downpour, and can convey to more modest regions. It will have a 15-mile range, generally twofold what the robots can do today.
Clients will likewise never again need to put out a marker to let the robot know where to make the drop, Patrao said. All things being equal, the client can choose an area on a guide on their telephone. The entire armada of robots will change to the MK30.
How to Amazon unveils new human-shaped
Amazon's Sparrow robot can get items that recently required human hands. Proteus is essential for a multitude of more brilliant robots at present moving into Amazon's now intensely computerized satisfaction communities. A portion of these machines, for example, Proteus, will work among people.
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