Swarms of machines move shelves all over the place

Mar 24, 2012 11:54 GMT  ·  By

Perhaps the worst part of working in a large warehouse – such as those operated by the most important retail stores – is that you have to walk tens of miles each day in order to retrieve various products. But that may no longer be the case, if a new approach developed by Kiva Systems gains a foothold.

The company created an automated system for transporting the shelves themselves to employees, and not the other way around. Basically, once you need a product, you simply issue a command calling for the shelf containing that product, and it will come to you.

The robotic system takes care that all of its components travel on the most efficient route, without any chance of collision. The system could contribute to making warehouse operations more efficient, and perhaps even faster, IEEE reports.

“When you see these things moving, you think, ’Oh my goodness, they're going to hit' . But of course they never do,” says Raffaello D'Andrea, the expert who wrote the control algorithms for the robots.