Stockpiling sucks. I feel the need to repeat this every time I discuss the topic here. Having performed a fair bit of this during my years of retail work, I can personally attest to the fact that it is mind-numbing drudgery. As such, it is a prime candidate for automation. After all, two of the main things robots are good at are measuring and doing the same job over and over again without complaining.
The Modex rooms this week are abuzz with solutions to the stock problem. It’s a particularly difficult issue when it comes to warehouses, both because of the large numbers that need to be recorded and the (literal) heights that you need to reach to collect these items. Recent years have given us drone solutions and Dexory’s massive AMR (autonomous mobile robot) with a telescoping scaffolding structure.
A new system was presented by Cypher Robotics this week in Modex splits the difference. At its core is a tall (but not Dexory tall) AMR that serves as a launch and landing pad for a drone. The idea is simple enough: The portable platform moves the warehouse floor and then the drone takes off, giving it a long vertical range.
I met the drone at the GreyOrange booth. The robotics company is increasingly embracing third-party robotics in its quest to fully automate warehouses. The company tells me the Captis robot was added to its offering at the behest of a customer who needed cycle counting, which involves cross-referencing inventory records with what’s actually on the shelves.
You can’t really see it from the picture I took, but the drone is actually strapped inside the AMR platform. When it rises, it reveals a hole with the cable inside. Hard-wired means you can get much longer battery life than non-wired systems. The Ottawa-based company says the drone can operate for up to five hours before needing to return to base to recharge.
