Boston Dynamics has announced a partnership with DHL. As part of the $15 million deal, Boston Dynamics will provide DHL with a fleet of robots that will operate in the logistics company's U.S. warehouses for three years.
The deal will be part of the DHL Supply Chain digitalization program. Robots will unload goods from trucks; DHL says that after the first deployments, the robots will be given additional tasks to support "other parts of the warehouse workflow."
The first Stretch will start working in DHL warehouses this spring. The robot is a robotic arm on a mobile base. Roboarm with seven degrees of freedom and suction cups is able to grab and move boxes weighing up to 23 kg. The robot is equipped with cameras and sensors for navigation and can work without recharging for eight hours.
Stretch seems to be a relatively simple robot compared to the famous Spot robot, but while Spot is mainly used for observation and data collection on the ground, Stretch has a more complicated task: it must grab and move boxes in three-dimensional space. Boxes can be of different sizes, can be crushed or damaged, making manipulation difficult.
Despite the difficulties, logistics companies note that due to a shortage of labor, there is an urgent need for warehouse automation. Last year, the US logistics industry posted a record 490,000 job openings. This gap gives firms like Boston Dynamics a great deal opportunity.
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