A large yellow metal arm dips into a plastic locker full of items and pulls out a bottle of fruit juice. Thanks to seven small extremities capable of sucking, he lifts it then moves it to his right towards one of the four compartments placed in front of him. He places the object there. Then he starts the operation again with a packet of cat food… On the left, on a screen, we discover one of the secrets of this robot: thanks to several cameras and sensors, as well as artificial intelligence software, it ” sees » the contents of the locker, identifies the outline and the nature of the objects.
“When he puts them down, he even puts them away in such a way as to minimize the space lost”, enthuses Jason Messinger, technical manager of the robotics branch of Amazon, who, Thursday, November 10, presented this new robot called Sparrow, in its Boston innovation center. “This robot succeeds in tasks of infinitely greater complexity than any of its predecessors: it can already handle 65% of the hundred million items offered for sale on Amazon,” insists Mr. Messinger.
The previous version, Robin, only knew how to enter the fifteen cardboard packaging used by the world leader in online sales. Deployed for eighteen months, 1,000 “Robins” are already moving parcels in Amazon warehouses. A more elaborate version, called Cardinal, will be deployed from the end of 2022. Sparrow, currently being tested in Texas, should arrive in warehouses in 2024. The pace of this robotization may seem slow. But it already exceeds the prophecies of Jeff Bezos: in 2019, the founder of Amazon predicted that the very arduous challenge of grabbing objects with a robotic arm would be overcome “within ten years”.
“First manufacturer of industrial robots”
Sparrow’s unveiling on Thursday was part of a demonstration of the grandeur of Amazon’s ambitions in robotics. It is in Boston, in the northeastern United States – and not at the headquarters in Seattle, on the west coast – that its subsidiary Amazon Robotics is based. The robots are designed and produced on site at the brand new Westborough center to the west of the city and at another factory in North Reading to the north. The latter was the headquarters of Kiva, the manufacturer that Amazon acquired in 2012 to start its foray into the field.
Amazon is already known for having deployed its subsidiary’s flagship robot in its warehouses: Hercules, a small square on wheels capable of passing under cupboards of items to move them around the warehouse. The company claims to already have 520,000 active robots at its sites, including those in France at Bretigny-sur-Orge (Essonne) and Metz. Of the 3 billion parcels sent by the platform each year, 75% would have been managed with the help of one of these machines. The company also sees itself as “the first manufacturer of industrial robots”, capable of producing up to 300,000 copies per year.
You have 50.61% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.