DC Velocity - May 2018

RightHand and Vecna offer combined piece-picking
and mobile robots
Automated warehouse picking startup RightHand
Robotics Inc. and mobile robot vendor Vecna Robotics
will collaborate to offer users a combination of their two
platforms that will provide autono-
mous e-commerce order fulfillment,
the firms said.
By combining their strengths in
different areas of material handling
technology, the partners can fill the
gaps that exist in fulfillment workflow
at many warehouses, the companies
said.
Integrating Somerville, Mass.-based
RightHand’s piece-picking gripper
hardware with Cambridge, Mass.-
based Vecna’s autonomous vehicle
could streamline warehouse operations by reducing the
number of picking errors, human touches of inventory,
and labor shortages throughout the day, RightHand
co-founder Yaro Tenzer said in an interview.

The partners demonstrated their technologies last month at the Modex trade show in Atlanta, using RightHand’s back-end software and gripper hand, a robotic arm from Universal Robots, and Vecna’s RC20 robotic conveyor vehicle, they said. The RC20 is Vecna’s smallest, most affordable autonomous mobile platform—named for its carrying capacity in kilograms (equal to about 44 pounds)—for moving totes, boxes, and bins. The company also makes robotic lifters and tuggers with carrying capacities of up to 4,500 kg ( 9,920 pounds), but those models are not currently part of the collaboration, RightHand said.