Amazon's Robotic Empire: Jeff Bezos' Smart Warehouses

it took amazon six years to get 100 000 robots working for them in their warehouses but in just the last two years that number has already doubled to 200 000 robots amazon is investing heavily into building their robotics empire from building a new 40 million dollar robotics lab that is set to open in 2021 to having aerospace engineers working in their robotics division this video takes a look at amazon's growing robotics empire we will look at the different types of robots that are working in the fulfillment centers and how artificial intelligence is being used to predict what you buy before you even buy it we will also look at the tech amazon is building to make their human workers work more like the robots such as a wristband that tells humans where to move their hands and what does the future hold for robotics at amazon could people be working from home controlling robots that work in the warehouses something that is being worked on in japan [Music] at amazon's fulfillment centers like the one on staten island robots transport items to humans who then pick and pack them to be delivered this robot alliance raises a human's productivity from 100 items packed per hour to around 300 to 400 items an hour the director of amazon robotics fulfillment says that amazon is at least 10 years away from robots fully automating the process of a single order amazon started using robots in their fulfillment centers in 2012 and by 2018 they had around 100 000 robots working for them then from 2018 to 2020 amazon doubled that number to 200 000 robots and there are 250 000 humans working in the amazon fulfillment centers globally the humans work alongside the robots in what amazon robotics chief technologist calls a symphony of humans and machines working together with an empire of robots working for them amazon is working hard behind the scenes to keep the robotic fleet running smoothly and keep the fleet growing in numbers one person tasked in managing all of this is the chief technologist at amazon robotics ty brady he holds a degree in aerospace engineering and a master's degree in aeronautics engineering from mit he worked as a spacecraft engineer at mit and then as a consultant at spacecraft solutions before working at amazon robotics the amazon robotics headquarters is located just outside of boston they also have a robotics development center further out from boston and over in germany amazon has another robotics development center and to help them grow even faster and build new types of robots amazon is in the middle of building a new 40 million dollar robotics innovation hub outside of boston the new space will have research and testing labs along with manufacturing space to engineer and build new robots let's take a look at the different types of robots that amazon has working in their fulfillment centers today the main workhorses that amazon has invested into are the drive units these are the flat robots that drive around the warehouses these alone make up 200 000 of amazon's robots the main task for these robots is to pick up shelves of products and move them to the human pickers these transport robots navigate the warehouses by following a series of computerized barcode stickers on the floor a sensor prevents each robot from colliding with other robots or with humans there is the kiva which is the original version that amazon first used they could carry kilograms or a thousand pounds and had a speed of three miles per hour the hercules robot was kiva's bigger brother and is used to carry heavier pallets it can carry 1 360 kilograms or three thousand pounds about three times the amount the pegasus is the updated version of the kiva it is ten centimeters or four inches shorter it can lift 110 kilograms or 242 pounds more than the kiva and is much cheaper to manufacture as it requires half of the parts another benefit of the pegasus is that it can be transformed it can have a half a meter or 1.6 feet conveyor belt connected on top then the pegasus can transport packages to a chute and slide them down where the packages then go onto a conveyor belt amazon says that investing in developing the conveyor belt attachment for the pegasus has halved mis-sorting errors as the robot rarely puts a parcel in the wrong shoot finally in june of 2019 amazon announced the xanthus drive unit they said that the new robot is much thinner with a third of the parts to build while being easier to maintain it can also be fitted with different attachments creating different roles for the robots and the xanthes can also detect the robotic vests worn by the human workers which we will go over later in the video these drive unit robots are the busy bees moving packages around the fulfillment centers so that they can be shipped off as fast as possible while they are the main robots being used in the warehouses there are a number of other ones being used too for example there is the more standard robotic arm that is used in a lot of other factories such as helping to lift and build tesla cars at the gigafactories in the amazon warehouses the robotic arm is called the robo stow it is a robotic arm manufactured by other companies outside of amazon it is used to carry and move large heavy pallets the robotic arm has a reach of 3.7 meters or 12 feet and can carry up to 1200 kilograms or 2600 pounds it can move the pallets with an accuracy of 0.18 millimeters this means it can perform the same action twice and be within point 18 millimeters of the last time it performed that movement then there are the labeling robots named the slam machines there are thousands of them and are made by an american company called ctm labeling systems two labeling robots working side by side can together label about one package per second let's take a step back before seeing more robotic tech that amazon is working in their centers and see how amazon got to where it is today of being a robotic overlord the success of using the kiva and the hercules robots in the fulfillment centers was why amazon bought kiva systems in 2012 paying 775 million dollars for the robotics company when amazon bought kiva they were supplying robots to other companies such as staples gap and walgreens they stopped supplying these other companies once amazon took over under amazon kiva would become amazon robotics more companies would then be bought to build amazon's robotic empire amazon bought canvas technology in 2018 canvas technology was a robotic startup that specialized in autonomous carts for moving goods near humans they can be used in warehouses and even offices and outdoors the carts use 3d imaging to understand its environment dodge obstacles and get to the correct location then there was the company called dispatch which amazon bought in 2017. dispatch was an urban delivery robot startup this investment could be part of amazon's scout delivery robot project which we will see later in the video then in 2020 amazon acquired zuke's for 1.3 billion zugs is a self-driving vehicle company this technology could be used to create self-driving delivery vehicles or even self-driving warehouse vehicles such as forklifts let's move back into the fulfillment centers and see what other tech and robots amazon has working for them and what they are building for the future there is a holy grail in warehouse robotics the main task that robots cannot perform in amazon warehouses today is picking different shaped items and packing them this requires a robot that can handle the different size rigidity shape and weight distribution of objects and grasp them like a human hand this level of dexterity is not currently available with robotic systems which is why humans are being used it is an area that amazon continues to research to get amazon there faster they have held an annual robotics picking challenge helping them find people and robot designs that can work on picking and packing items then there is the tech that is being developed to make humans more robotic and in sync with working with robots amazon robotics created a robotic tech vest in 2019 which they rolled out to over 25 sites these vests that workers wear are equipped with sensors that alert nearby robots that people are present and this works with the existing collision avoidance systems already installed in the robots the amazon robotics vice president said that in the past human workers would mark out where they would be working in order to enable the robotic traffic planner to smartly route around that region this vest now allows the robots to detect humans from farther away allowing the robots to update their transport plan and steer clear automatically there has also been talk of human hand tracker tech this is so that when robots bring the tall towers to the humans the humans will know where to quickly put their hands to grab the right item the faster they can do this the better it can't be like when we are standing in front of the fridge wondering what there is to eat one way of solving this that has been talked about is a wristband that amazon has patented it tracks the location of the user's wrist and vibrates in the direction it wants them to move to this received backlash from the media for privacy concerns and does not appear to have been implemented another solution that has been mentioned to help with this is having individual shelves light up showing where the items are and then there was talk of there being cameras overhead tracking the human hands with a screen showing where to put their hands in the tower this would make sense now since similar technology is being used in amazon go stores that track what you pick up so that you can just walk out when you're done shopping so as the amazon robots continue to work around the fulfillment center amazon continues to figure out ways of being more efficient by controlling the human workers more closely and they build tech that makes the humans more efficient like the robots and reduces the number of mistakes they make in the future could humans be used to control robots that pick and pack the items and the person operating them can even be at home while the robots work in the warehouses these kinds of robots are being tested in japan and this will be talked about more in our next video let's take a look at what the future holds for the robots working in an amazon fulfillment center what ways could more artificial intelligence be installed into an amazon center ai is already being used to predict what you are going to buy before you even go to the amazon website since 2015 deep learning ai has been predicting what is going to be bought and getting it to the nearest fulfillment center before it is even ordered this means that when you shop online products are readily available cheaper to ship and since they are waiting at a center near you they will ship to your doorstep faster what other ways could ai make amazon ship products even faster amazon go stores let you instantly walk out with items could more of this tech make its way into amazon's shipping centers what about alexa how could amazon's voice assistant be used in their fulfillment centers in the future there has not been any mention of amazon using their voice assistant in their fulfillment centers yet but it is already being used in other shipping centers shipping easy is an online shipping platform that helps ecommerce sites ship their products amazon's assistant helps people move from using a keyboard or barcode scanner to using the voice assistant to manage orders print labels check postage rates and handle other shipping tasks hands-free other shipping warehouses already use voice-directed technology which gives verbal instructions based on the warehouse's software through headsets to human workers picking orders lastly on the future tech front there is the keeper satellite network amazon is investing 10 billion dollars to build a satellite internet network just like spacex's starlink amazon's version would require 3236 orbiting satellites and they have already received fcc certification amazon could use this network to keep their robotic delivery systems connected to a central server amazon's robots don't just stay inside of the fulfillment centers robots are being built to deliver the packages straight to you there is the well-known drone delivery program that amazon has been working on along with the scout robots that drive down a sidewalk to deliver your packages could the autonomous drones be used in the fulfillment centers one day maybe once humans are no longer needed and the drones can fly around freely once self-driving cars or vans are on the street could the scout robots drive out of the self-driving delivery van to place the package on your doorstep or could the scout robot communicate with your own robot that is inside your house who can open your door and receive the package for you there is also amazon's ring doorbell which could communicate with the scout robot to let it into the house to deliver your package ring even has a home security drone in september 2020 amazon announced their ring always home cam it is a security drone that flies to an area in the home in the event of an emergency such as a break-in and streams what is happening to your phone could these little drone security robots one day work in an amazon fulfillment center where if a product falls off of a shelf the drone goes to inspect what happened then calls in a robot that can pick it up and return it to the right place will there be a day when you click to buy a product on amazon and the whole delivery chain is run by robots from artificial intelligence predicting what you want to buy to self-driving planes that deliver the goods to a robotic fulfillment center where robots such as self-driving forklifts supervising drones driving units and robotic arms get the items packed and delivery robots then take the packages and work with your personal robot to get the packages delivered and inside your home on the next episode of venture city we take a look at the home office setup of the future from controlling robots in a warehouse while you are at home to the robotics working in your own home office hit the subscribe and thumbs up button to not miss a video

Channel: Venture City

Views: 702,675

Rating: 4.8299594 out of 5

Keywords: Amazon, Jeff Bezos, Robotics, amazon fulfillment center, warehouse, future, robots, satellites, Tech, self driving, autonomous, smart warehouse, futuristic, amazon warehouse, automation, technology, smart city, future city

Id: AKCJsvZdBmI

Length: 15min 6sec (906 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020