The future should move from warehouses to public spaces

Jul 7, 2015 15:35 GMT  ·  By

It is probably known by now that Amazon's warehouse networks of autonomous robots is one of the company's prides and joys when it comes to pure technological advancement.

Looking at the machines roaming inside Amazon's massive US warehouses  twisting, turning, fetching, grabbing and delivering all sorts of goods from shelves built especially for them, shows how far large companies have gone to achieve the limits of automation in human-machine collaboration.

Almost frightening in size, precision and autonomy they evoke the same kind of awe combined with a hint of fear, same thing as I felt when I saw for the first time the giant car-manufacturing-robotic hands coming from Japan in the late '80s.

Leaving aside the whole argument of how much the advancement of technology is killing jobs in the developed world and how it even takes lives, robots are still developed to serve this industry while having an enormous application potential in consumer markets and also in more "visible" areas like supermarkets or any laborious job.

In this regard Fetch Robotics is developing the Fright, a Wall-E-looking assistant robot that is, unfortunately still, built for companies like Amazon and Newegg to help employees roam around shelves and select all sorts of small objects in their stock to have them shipped, without requiring a massive, twisting robotic platform to ballet its way among shelves to carry just one box of pencils.

Technological gems no one gets to see

However, when you look at it, the first thing that it comes to mind is, why don't they build these things for supermarkets or train stations or airports, or any other place that requires people to carry heavy bags or luggage? Why these wonderful machines aren't developed for the public instead of corporation warehouses? Money will ultimately come from anyplace, no matter if it's Amazon that pays Fetch Robotics or the US State or Walmart.

A quick look at the specs will show you how advanced are the machines that serve corporations in hidden warehouses and are simply not for public use. Specs like, 3D RGB Depth Sensors for the "eyes", 2D Laser also for orientation with a range of 25m at 220 degrees working on an i5 Haswell with 16GB of RAM. It also has stereo speakers, integrated WiFi, 3x USB ports an HD(!) video port and one Ethernet port. And yes, as any self-respecting robot it runs on Linux.

Although extremely valuable for industrial heavyweight lifting, these machines could be just as valuable and helpful in all consumer applications that also require lifting and carrying.

Price wise it would also make sense as the end users will also be large companies as, say Walmart instead of Amazon, that could also profit from upgrading their internal facilities without needing to sacrifice jobs and grow their marginal profits.

Bringing assist-technology into the streets will not only build a good reputation for a company but lifts the general lifestyle of consumers that will find this new tech not only helpful but highly efficient and practical.

It's a shame they have to stay locked in dark, massive warehouses instead of helping civilians on the streets or in shops, and enjoy the popularity they deserve.