The year of 2016 seemed to be a year full of accomplishments in relation to the development in the field of robotics. 2017 is the year when the theories about robots are being put to use and their use is evident in various fields. The influence of robotics is visible in the e-commerce sector as well. Ocado which is one of the world’s biggest online-only grocery retailers has this technology in its warehouses as well. The Ocado humanoid robot is dubbed SecondHands, which is unlike the contemporary robots available in the market. These robots are useful in picking as well as packing the grocery products for shipment.
The use of robots is quite beneficial in places like warehouses due to the excessive amount of labor work it includes. At such places, automated labor and fleets of robots prove to be beneficial. But these robots aren’t up to the mark in terms of human standards. Generally, robots are efficient at carrying large boxes. When it comes to carrying items with delicacy keeping in mind the material of the product, these robots cause more harm than benefit. Keeping this in mind, Ocado has developed a technology in which the robot handles any product keeping in mind its shape and fragility.
How does the Ocado humanoid robot work
Ocado’s aim is to embrace technology in order streamline its operations in an automated manner. A result of these conscious efforts is the Ocado humanoid robot. This robot has the ability to comprehend human speech accompanied with 3D vision. It uses artificial intelligence with its machine learning for the purpose of packing and dispatching goods from the warehouse of the company. This unique robot is a part of the Software Manipulation (SoMa) project. This Horizon 2020 program funded by the European Union was for robotics research and innovation.
The latest development in this project is a working robotic arm. The robotic arm can grasp regular grocery products with varied shapes like fruits and vegetables with precision. After doing so, it packs them safely for delivery without causing any harm to them. The robotic arm contains a spring-like mechanism. This mechanism controls the Ocado humanoid robot by changing the air pressure. This automatically adjusts the grip of the arm on the basis of the product it is handling. This serves to be extremely helpful as Ocado has a range of over 50,000 products to choose from. Due to this, the robot needs to be adaptable.
