BY JAMES COOKE, EDITOR AT LARGE
techwatch
Robots: coming soon to a DC
near you (really!)
MORE ROBOTS CAN BE FOUND ON MARS TODAY THAN IN
the nation’s warehouses, says Tom Bonkenburg, director of European
operations for the consulting firm St. Onge Co. But that’s about to
change.
A mechanical engineering graduate from the Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, Bonkenburg has been fascinated by robots since
he was a kid. His dream is to see robots working alongside people in
distribution centers. Although that idea may have been far-fetched
when he was younger, technological advances are starting to make
that dream more realistic.
Up to now, the robots used in maufacturing
plants have been too expensive and not flexible or
mobile enough to do the tasks found in a distribution center, Bonkenburg told a gathering at the
Supply Chain World conference in April. But
advances in computing power, vision systems, and
sensors are making robots more feasible for warehousing.
What’s different today is that the companies that
make robots can take advantage of technology
originally developed for other industries. In partic-
ular, robotics manufacturers can build on advance-
ments in consumer electronics, which they then
adapt to their own needs. For example, a low-cost
motion control sensor—the Microsoft Kinect—
developed for the Xbox gaming systems can be used to help robots
“see” their surroundings. “The robotics industry is still small, so they
are unable to develop low-cost sensors like the consumer electronics
industry did due to the low number of robots sold,” says Bonkenburg.
“Developments in the robotics world rely on the consumer electron-
ics and automotive industries to develop improved computer power,
sensors, and actuators that can be repurposed for robotics.”
Already, several companies are taking steps in the warehouse robot-
ics direction. Take the efforts to automate forklift operations, for
example. Bonkenburg notes that many companies are marketing
forklifts that do not require a driver. Egemin Automation has come
up with an automated guided vehicle that can pick up and deliver pal-
lets, rolls, and carts. Seegrid has partnered with forklift makers
Raymond and Linde Material Handling to make a vision-guided
robotic forklift. And Kollmorgen has developed a kit called “Pick-n-
Go” to automate a forklift. A picker can then
follow the Pick-n-Go–equipped truck down a
warehouse aisle.
