Supported by the South Korean carmaker Hyundai, the nonprofit research center is on a mission to push the frontiers of robotics and artificial intelligence.
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For most people, the task of identifying an object, picking it up, and placing it somewhere else is trivial. For robots, it requires the latest in machine intelligence and robotic manipulation.
That’s what MIT spinoff RightHand Robotics has incorporated into its robotic piece-picking systems, which combine unique gripper designs with artificial intelligence and machine vision to help companies sort products and get orders out the door.
“If you buy something at the store, you push the cart down the aisle and pick it yourself. When you order online, there is an equivalent operation inside a fulfillment center,” says RightHand Robotics co-founder Lael Odhner ’04, SM ’06, PhD ’09. “The retailer typically needs to pick up single items, run them through a scanner, and put them into a sorter or conveyor belt to complete the order. It sounds easy until you imagine tens of thousands of orders a day and more than 100,000 unique products stored in a facility the size of 1
This Robot May Just Be What Retailers Need in Their Warehouses ndtv.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ndtv.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Credits: Courtesy of the researchers Caption: “We can give people insights into their inventory, insights into how they’re storing their inventory, how they’re structuring tasks both upstream and downstream of any picking we’re doing,” Odhner says. Credits: Courtesy of the researchers
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For most people, the task of identifying an object, picking it up, and placing it somewhere else is trivial. For robots, it requires the latest in machine intelligence and robotic manipulation.
That’s what MIT spinoff RightHand Robotics has incorporated into its robotic piece-picking systems, which combine unique gripper designs with artificial intelligence and machine vision to help companies sort products and get orders out the door.
Implementing Piece-Picking Robots into Micro-Fulfillment Centers
Q&A with Vince Martinelli is Head of Product & Marketing | RightHand Robotics
Tell us a bit about RightHand Robotics and how the startup was founded.
RightHand Robotics (RHR) builds a data-driven intelligent picking platform providing flexible and scalable automation for predictable order fulfillment. RHR is a leader in providing end-to-end solutions that add predictability and reduce costs for e-commerce order-fulfillment of general merchandise, consumer packaged goods, grocery, pharmaceuticals, health and beauty, electronics, apparel and other retail verticals. Unlike traditional factory robots, ours are simple to integrate and easily adaptable to improve customer warehouse processes. Our robots typically pick items from a tote delivered by an AS/RS or a conveyor and are then transferred into outbound totes or cartons.