Robots Unloading Trucks

Classic problem, closer to solution.   Its surprising that this problem of solving the problem of dealing with relative disorder.  Another step forward.

Robots Edge Closer to Unloading Trucks in Amazon-Era Milestone in SupplyChainBrain

As FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. beef up automation to keep pace with surging e-commerce and a potential threat from Amazon.com Inc., they’ve been stumped at a crucial stage: loading and unloading trucks.

Robot makers are getting close to solving part of that puzzle.

Siemens AG and Honeywell International Inc. have built machines that pull packages from the back of a tractor-trailer and place them on conveyor belts, whizzing the parcels off for sorting. Making robots that can load trucks is more complicated, although clearing that hurdle isn’t far off.

“The biggest challenge in our world is: Every single package is different in size, shape, weight, color, material,” said Ted Dengel, managing director of operations technology at FedEx’s ground-delivery unit. “It makes it a very tricky problem.”

The devices, unveiled at a recent automation conference in Chicago, hold out the promise of increasing productivity while reducing the need for one of the most grueling jobs in logistics. Couriers are relying on automation to grapple with the rise of online shopping, which is fueling record demand but pressuring profit margins. Amazon’s plan to handle more of its own shipping and offer more one-day deliveries is only upping the ante. .... " 

Fedex Experiments with Autonomous Pods

I think we can assume we will soon see multiple autonomous delivery pods crawling (and perhaps later flying) all around the landscape.    Waiting for unintended consequences.   Not too different from automated mail delivery bots we had in the office as early as the 70s,  but these will be in the open, sometimes competing with traffic.

FedEx unveils autonomous delivery robot  Trials of the robot, which has a top speed of 10 mph, will begin later this year    By James Vincent in The Verge

Startups do it. Amazon does it. And now even Fedex is doing it — experimenting with robots for short-range deliveries. Today, the company officially announced its new FedEx SameDay Bot, which it says could help make “last mile” deliveries more efficient.

The SameDay Bot is battery-powered, has a top speed of 10 mph, and is autonomous, meaning it can steer itself around pedestrians and traffic using a combination of LIDAR sensors like those found in self-driving cars and regular cameras.

FedEx says it will initially use the bot to courier packages between the company’s offices in its headquarters in Memphis (pending approval from local government). But if these trials are successful it wants to expand the service to other companies and retailers, eventually making robots a standard part of its same-day delivery service.  ... "