Amazon Introduces 'Sparrow' Robotic Arm That Can Do Repetitive Warehouse Tasks

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Amazon on Thursday showed off a new robot that could one day assist warehouse workers with some of the more tedious aspects of the job. The company unveiled "Sparrow," a robotic arm that can pluck millions of items of varying shapes and sizes, on stage at the Delivering the Future conference near Boston, where it showcased new robotics, transportation and last-mile delivery technologies. Amazon says Sparrow uses computer vision and artificial intelligence to move products before they're packaged. A video of Sparrow shows the robotic arm picking up a board game, a bottle of vitamins and a set of sheets -- all the kinds of items that might flow through one of the company's warehouses -- and deftly placing them in crates.

Suction cups attached to the surface of the robot allow it to firmly grasp items. Previous iterations of robotic arms have been able to pick up boxes, which are generally uniform in their shape but might vary in size. But Sparrow is capable of handling items with varying curvature and size, said Jason Messinger, principal technical product manager of robotic manipulation at Amazon Robotics, in a demonstration. "This is not just picking the same things up and moving it with high precision, which we've seen in previous robots," Messinger said. The robotic arm can identify around 65% of Amazon's product inventory, the company said.

While the introduction of robots to the warehouse often raises questions about whether human jobs will be replaced, Amazon says Sparrow will "take on repetitive tasks," freeing employees up to focus on other things. The company also said the technology can improve safety in the workplace, although that prospect has been debated. An investigation by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting found the company's warehouses with robots have higher injury rates than facilities without automation. Further reading: Amazon Unveils Smaller Delivery Drone That Can Fly in Rain

big and needs vacuum power? does not seem mobile

[Joe_Dragon]

big and needs vacuum power? does not seem mobile

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[arglebargle_xiv]

It's also the wrong approach to the problem. Taking a problem that's been optimised to be solvable by humans and then building a crappy analogue of some human body part to solve it makes about as much sense as trying to build a flying machine using some light flappy material driven by coiled-up rubber bands. To build a flying machine you throw away your ideas of how birds work and get a barn door and bolt an engine to it. To manage warehouses, you do what China has done with its automated warehouses whic

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[AmiMoJo]

I guess the issue for Amazon is that they have these huge warehouses full of plastic tubs with random products randomly thrown into them. While it would make sense to design the product packaging to be handled by robots, and develop a storage system that makes them easy to pick up by robots, that's not the reality they are dealing with.

They could lean on manufacturers and suppliers to package stuff better, but it's not going to happen quickly. Industries would need to develop packaging suitable for their pr

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[cascadingstylesheet]

It's also the wrong approach to the problem. Taking a problem that's been optimised to be solvable by humans and then building a crappy analogue of some human body part to solve it makes about as much sense as trying to build a flying machine using some light flappy material driven by coiled-up rubber bands. To build a flying machine you throw away your ideas of how birds work and get a barn door and bolt an engine to it. To manage warehouses, you do what China has done with its automated warehouses which are designed from scratch with machine handling in mind, not by trying to emulate what a human would do in a human-oriented warehouse.

Um, yeah, except businesses are full of many human oriented workflows, and fitting robots to slide into them can be easier than retooling all the workflows from scratch.

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[ShanghaiBill]

big and needs vacuum power? does not seem mobile

From the photo in TFA, it does not look mobile.

But small battery-powered vacuum pumps [amazon.com], powerful enough for suction cups, are cheap, reliable, and often used in robots.

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[Opportunist]

Then the whole company is fully automated. The C-Levels can already be replaced without any quality loss by magic-8-balls.

freeing employees

[Skapare]

While the introduction of robots to the warehouse often raises questions about whether human jobs will be replaced, Amazon says Sparrow will "take on repetitive tasks," freeing employees up to focus on other things.

like wondering how to deal with no paycheck. more like freeing Amazon up to pay more parts suppliers.

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[Skapare]

if the most your employer needs to have done over and over and.....

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[Elfich47]

There is plenty more work to be done instead of getting repetitive strain injuries.

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[fermion]

Which is the employees choice. Evidently working in a not well air conditioned warehouse or during a tornado is not what most wish to do. They now have the opportunity to find better employment.

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[Pascoea]

I worked in a warehouse a while ago. My job literally involved shoving shit in boxes, packing material and product, taping it shut and pushing it down the line to be loaded onto a truck. They bought and implemented a "robot" that taped boxes shut. Do you know how it affected my job? I still had to shove product and packing material into a box and push it down the line to be taped shut, then loaded onto the truck. Now I could just do it 1% (or whatever) faster. Some bean counter did the math and figured

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[scourfish]

Progressives claim that Amazon warehouse work is too fast paced and inhumane (from a first-world problems perspective) now they complain that those jobs are going away. I believe it was a progressive journalist who once told a coal miner losing his job to "learn to code"

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[cusco]

During the first day orientation Fulfillment Center employees are told that the job is going to be automated as soon as possible so they should only consider it temporary.

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[DontBeAMoran]

It's all fake news until it's posted on The Onion.

"tedious aspects of the job"

[cas2000]

will it carry their piss bottle for them?

or maybe replace the bottle by automating the insertion and removal of a catheter?

I'm surprised there's been no mention of Wolowitz

[Babel-17]

The Big Bang Theory milked all the humor from Howard playing with his robot arm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Better quality, all clips in one

[Babel-17]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

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[Anonymous Crowded]

The Big Bang Theory milked all the humor from Howard playing with his robot arm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Well, that was one quick burst without much satisfaction . . .

I would have went with:
Well, just make sure it RELEASES when you unplug it.

Is that really necessary?

[Opportunist]

Can't be cheaper than an Amazon worker drone.

Automation only happens when slave wages become too expensive, I highly doubt that this has happened to Amazon already.

And the best part?

[gosso920]

It won't ask to unionize!

The Claw

[groobly]

Getting a robot to pick up random shaped objects of varying hardness and fragility is harder than successfully operating the claw arm game at an arcade.

Will It Also Help

[Your Anus]

choosing ridiculously oversized boxes for each product?

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[DontBeAMoran]

Or pick a cardboard box for something soft and not fragile, while also picking a weak plastic bubblewrap mailer for something incredibly fragile?