Recently, Boston Dynamics, an intelligent robotics company, won the first commercial customer for its Stretch robots.
The customer was a contract logistics service provider, DHL Supply Chain ("DHL"), which spent $15 million to automate its Warehouse in North America.
Figure | Stretch Robot (Source: DHL)
Over the next three years, Boston Dynamics will deliver a robot "fleet" to DHL's warehouses across North America, although the exact number has not yet been revealed. It is understood that this spring, DHL will begin to deploy the first robots.
The Stretch robot will first perform the truck unloading task, after which the multi-purpose mobile robot will support other parts of the warehouse workflow.
"DHL is committed to continuous innovation and digital transformation to optimize the end-to-end supply chain. Warehouse automation plays an important role in improving operational efficiency and improving customer service," said Sally Miller, CHIEF INFORMATION Officer, North America Supply Chain at DHL, "Stretch robots solve complex industry challenges through flexible automation that we will replicate and scale globally." ”
The Stretch robot was launched in March 2021 and is based on the box mobile robot "Handle", which was demonstrated by Boston Dynamics in 2017, and is mainly used in warehouse and logistics environments. DHL has been working closely with Boston Dynamics for the past few years and has been involved in the testing and development of stretch robots.
The Stretch robot features an omnidirectional mobile base with four individually controlled wheels and a custom 7-DoF industrial robot arm with a built-in battery that supports up to 8 hours of continuous operation. The end of the Arm has a custom suction tray capable of lifting items up to 50 pounds.
The robot also has cameras and sensors for navigation. Its vision system, called Pick, uses "high-resolution 2D and 3D vision and machine learning algorithms." "Pick" was developed by Kinema Systems, a machine vision software company acquired by Boston Dynamics in April 2019.
As Boston Dynamics' second commercial robot, stretch has to grip and manipulate a large number of boxes of varying sizes and weights in complex 3D operations compared to the first "robot dog" Spot, which is not easy in practice.
Spot, to name a few, has powerful mobility, adapts to a variety of terrains, and is able to install a variety of loads to perform different tasks. Spot is currently used as an inspection and data acquisition robot and has been deployed to oil rigs, nuclear power plants and some of the more dangerous places.
Figure |" Robot Dog" Spot (Source: Boston Dynamics)
Boston Dynamics has been working hard to commercialize its products, especially after it was acquired by South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group in late 2020. This partnership with DHL is another successful commercial trial after Spot.
When Stretch launched in March 2021, Boston Dynamics said, "About 80 percent of warehouses worldwide don't have any automation equipment, which is a fairly large potential market." Stretch can move up to 800 packages per hour. ”
Commenting on the partnership with DHL, Robert Playter, CEO of Boston Dynamics, said, "Stretch is our latest robot, and we're excited to see it put into use at scale, believing it can have a measurable impact on DHL's business operations."
However, relevant people also mentioned that it is difficult to let robots work in warehouses, the differences in these spaces are very large, various commodities and workflows are changing every day, and robots will face huge challenges.
Figure | Stretch Handling Packages (Source: Boston Dynamics)
How much of a role Stretch will ultimately play will still need to be tested in practice.
In addition, how Boston Dynamics went from focusing on robotics research to transforming into a company that produces and sells hardware is also a question worth paying attention to. This may indicate that most of the world's robots will be deployed for mundane, everyday tasks in the future.
The robots actually sold are still dealing with dull, dirty and dangerous work that humans don't want to do.
For DHL, this is an opportunity to fully automate its warehouses. Currently, DHL's business volume is being affected due to competition from Amazon and other robotics companies.
For example, not long before the deal was struck, Phantom Auto, a supplier of mobile warehouse robots, announced that it had raised $42 million for its platform, which allows humans to remotely operate forklifts, trucks, robots and more from thousands of miles away. Phantom Motors also struck deals with other logistics service providers to deploy thousands of Phantom-powered forklifts over the next few years.
At the same time, warehouse automation can help solve the labor shortage. In 2021, the U.S. transportation and logistics industry reported that the industry now has a record 490,000 job openings due to low salaries and heavy work, and this gap will not be filled anytime soon. Although the companies involved are currently raising wages and benefits, it is difficult to produce positive changes in the short term.
In particular, the world is still under the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more orders are moving online, and logistics demand will only gradually increase. And that, in turn, gives companies like Boston Dynamics an opportunity to accelerate the sale of their products.
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reference:
https://www.dhl.com/us-en/home/press/press-archive/2022/dhl-supply-chain-to-invest-usd15-million-to-further-automate-warehousing-via-boston-dynamics-collaboration.html
https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/26/boston-dynamics-warehouse-robot-gets-a-15m-gig-working-for-dhl/
https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/26/22902568/boston-dynamics-stretch-robot-logistics-dhl-deal