Amazon robot factory

The new robot Amazon it is a yellow arm with suction cups on one end capable of positioning millions of products to be packaged and shipped to consumers.

Is named Sparrow (Sparrow), incorporates artificial intelligence and computer vision and is the new star in the robot factory of Amazon in the Boston, Massachusetts area, the center of robot innovation in the United States.

Sparrow it joins a catalog of half a dozen robots designed and manufactured by the e-commerce giant to streamline its North American warehouses.

In June, Amazon Robotics —the research and development unit of Amazon— announced the Proteus model, an autonomous bug capable of lifting shelves with products and taking them to other areas of the warehouses.

Proteus it’s green, it has “eyes” and it makes “expressions” so that human employees in Amazon warehouses “feel comfortable working with it” while the bug moves along the ground.

“Proteus is an add-on in the warehouse,” said Mikell Taylor, director of the technology program at Amazon Robotics, during a tour for the press on Thursday, November 10. Amazon executives want to make it clear that incorporating robots into the company’s processes will not displace humans or reduce jobs.

It is that the robots do “a lot of jobs that people don’t want to do,” said Mai Le, vice president of Amazon Last Mile Technologies.

The introduction of robots in warehouses also has to do with safety, a sensitive issue for the company and, above all, for the workers. In 2021, Amazon recorded a significant increase in the number of people injured in its warehouses, something the company considered a consequence of the volume of new personnel that joined the company during the pandemic. “When comparing 2021 to 2019, our injury rate decreased by more than 13%,” the company reported at the time.

The amazon robot factory it is a facility capable of producing 330,000 units a year. A robot can be assembled in an hour. Around 200 people work at the plant, including engineers —mainly in mechatronics and robotics—, scientists and operating personnel.

Amazon Robotics gravitates in tune with a $1 billion fund created by the company for robotics research and development and that supports operations of specialized companies such as Modjoul, Bionic Hive and Agility Robotics.

It is located in the area of Bostonheadquarters of some of the most popular and media companies in American robotics, such as Boston Dynamics, iRobot or Neurala.

Sparrow is the newest robot in the Amazon catalog and joins the family of Proteus, Hercules (a robot that locates products in warehouses) or previous versions of muscular robots like Pegasus and or pickers like Robin.

The robots of Amazon they are for internal consumption, for the exclusive use of the company, which actually offers it a competitive advantage to consolidate its leading position in electronic commerce, make its warehouses more efficient and reduce operating costs.

* I discovered this robot factory in the Boston area at the invitation of Amazon, which paid for my round-trip flight from Mexico City and my accommodation in Massachusetts.