Warehouse management is one of the major industries that is being automated at a blazing speed - using warehouse robots for tasks such as fetching items around the warehouse, to sorting and shelving , to picking and packing, and eventually shipping off.
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Picker-as-a-service. There are picker robot-as-a-service from companies such as Geek+ Robotics, InVia Robotics and Magazino, that charges on a per-pick service model, ranging from 6 cents to 10 cents per pick.
AMR-as-a-service (AMRaaS). Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR), the more intelligent cousins of the traditional AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles), are also increasingly popular as robot-as-a-service, with solutions from 6 River, Fetch Robotics and Locus Robotics. These robots are leased on a monthly basis, ranging from $711 per robot per month to several thousand dollars per month, depending on the period of commitment.
Warehouse Robot-as-a-service (Image credit: TechObjects.io)
We introduce these warehouse RaaS providers below :
MOBILE ORDER-PICKING ROBOTS
Geek+ Robotics. Geek+ Robotics is a China-based firm that develops Goods-to-Person (GTP) robotic picking systems. Geek+ picker-AMRs can identify and pick an entire shelf or a single pallet, moving at 1.5m/s to their target locations. There are two versions of the Geek+ picker robots - the P500 which can pick payloads of up to 500kg and the P1000 which can pick payloads of up to 1,000kg. The company has deployed more than 7000 picker robots worldwide across over 200 projects.
Compare Geek+ Robotics with Invia Robotics
InVia Robotics. InVia Robotics is a US-based firm that develops mobile order-picking robots that is available on a pay-as-you-use model of about 10 cents per pick. InVia picker robots can pick items at different vertical locations by using a combination of scissor lifts and suction cups. Watch how the InVia robot picks an item off the shelf in the demonstration video below:
Magazino. Magazino is a robotics company based in Germany that offers mobile picking robots-as-a-service (about 6 cents per pick). Its flagship picking robot, TORU, is a taller-than-human robot that can extend itself via its telescoping tower to retrieve small boxes from shelf racks, using a vacuum gripper that can pick up, lift and deposit boxes weighing up to 5.8 kg. It features a backpack compartment that can store and carry up to 16 boxes to its target location.
AUTONOMOUS MOBILE ROBOTS (AMR)
Compare 6 River Systems with Fetch Robotics
Fetch Robotics. Fetch Robotics is a robotics company based in California, USA. The company develops the VirtualConveyor line of autonomous mobile robots (AMR) that help to transport items within warehouses (HMIShelf), deliver items to conveyor lines (RollerTop), pick up and drop off carts (CartConnect) and carry pallets to their target locations (Freight500 for payloads of up to 500kg and Freight1500 for payloads of up to 1,500kg). These AMRs are available based on an annual or monthly licensing model. The product video below shows a demonstration of the Freight500 AMR in action.
Locus Robotics. Locus Robotics is a US-based robotics company that provides autonomous mobile robot-as-a-service solutions to warehouses. The shoulder-height Locus Robots autonomously move to picking locations where workers can load items onto the configured bins. Once the robots have fulfilled their picking mission, they automatically head towards the packing/shipping stations.
Compare Locus Robotics with Ronavi Robotics
Ronavi Robotics Ronavi Robotics is a Russia-based robotics firm that provides autonomous mobile robot as a service (AMRaaS). Its primary offering is the H1500 AMR which is capable of handling payloads of up to 1500 kg.
Find out more about RaaS players in these industries
There is also a newly released apera.io robots-as-a-service report for 2022 that you may like to read: