Amazon Vulcan: How Amazon has produced a machine with a sense of touch - and why it could be coming to Yorkshire
Amazon recently launched Vulcan, a robotic system which has a sense of touch.
The company say that anyone who has spent time in industrial automation will understand that this a major step forward.
Robots are very good at carrying out complex and precise tasks over and over again but subtlety and fine touches are not easily achieved.
An Amazon spokesman said: “Most robots see then move in a fixed sequence. It’s the old paradigm of look, think, act. Touch is different.
"It means the system understands how it is contacting the world - how much force it is applying, continuously in real time coupled with AI, it knows it should press, glide or stop and when to call on a human partner.
“Touch allows Vulcan to pick and stow roughly three-quarters of the items we handle every day while helping frontline employees to stay in their ergonomic power zone.
"No more stretching to the top bin or crouching to the floor.”
The Vulcan team has created a robot that can feel “and in doing so they built a new kind of collaboration between humans and machines”.
He said: “When we built Vulcan we didn’t start by asking ‘What robot can we make?’ We started by asking ‘Where is the hardest job for people?’
“That question guides every project we take on here at Amazon. Because in robotics the hardest part isn’t getting machines to move. It’s getting them to move for people.”
He said Vulcan was understanding the “subtlety of touch” which makes them capable of “delicate, dexterous work” which sets the path for more human-machine collaboration.
He added: “We’re shifting from individual intelligence to collective intelligence. A single robot can be impressive; co-ordinating a symphony of millions of robotic tasks changes the game.”