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AUTOMATION, UPGRADED: ROBOTIC SORTER INDUCTION


DATE

2022-09-02


AUTHORS

 * Akash Shah


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As Covariant co-founder, President, and Chief Scientist, Pieter Abbeel,
mentioned in a recent interview, automation in today’s warehouses tends to be
focused on the “legwork” — largely conveying items from one part of the
warehouse to another. Automated unit sorters (e.g. split tray sorters, bomb bay
sorters, tilt tray sorters), pocket or pouch sorters, and even AGV or AMR-based
sorters are often used as part of this conveyance.

But the process of placing, or inducting, items onto the sorters and conveyors,
is largely manual — that is to say, the “handwork” remains unautomated.

This manual induction is a highly repetitive task prone to injury and high
turnover rates, which make it difficult to staff. Additionally, inaccurate
placement of items on the sorters can lead to frequent jamming resulting in
stoppages affecting throughput.

Now, with advancements in modern deep learning-based AI, that is changing.
AI-powered robots can now autonomously pick and place virtually any type of item
or SKU, regardless of shape, size, packaging, and variety.


WHAT IS ROBOTIC SORTER INDUCTION?

A robotic sorter induction system uses AI-powered robots to autonomously induct
items onto sorters, rather than having a person perform this repetitive
injury-prone task. AI Robotics platforms, such as the Covariant Brain, enable
robots to perform this task with high precision at high speed and accuracy over
sustained periods of time.

Why is artificial intelligence needed for this task?

Because it’s hard! We take it for granted as humans. But for a robot, picking up
an item requires understanding its size, shape, and deformability, rapidly doing
complex math problems to calculate the angle of approach and the optimal path to
a destination, and placing the item with a degree of accuracy and care that will
ensure that the item doesn’t fall off the conveyor or sorter (that’s moving!) or
break in the process. And that’s just for one SKU – humans in these positions
process hundreds of thousands of SKUs, all of which have different shapes,
dimensions, and materials and can switch to picking and placing totally new SKUs
in an instant. 

Our AI Robotics platform, the Covariant Brain, enables a robot to do all of this
with high speed and accuracy, to learn from its mistakes, and to pass its
knowledge on to all other Covariant robots in the network. Robotic sorter
induction takes advantage of this ability to complete pick and place tasks with
precision.


SPOTLIGHT: GXO

GXO is “the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider”, with 900
warehouses in 28 countries. KNAPP, a Covariant partner leveraging the Covariant
Brain to automate their robots, deployed their Pick-it-Easy robot to induct
apparel items into pocket sorters for GXO.

The Covariant Brain-powered robot picks up each apparel item and places it on a
tilted scan table to scan the barcode. The item is then pushed into the pocket
sorter.


FOUR KEY COMPONENTS OF A ROBOTIC INDUCTION SYSTEM


AI-POWERED PICKING FOR ANY SKU TYPE

When it comes to robotic piece-picking at warehouses, the sheer variety of SKUs
and items can present virtually infinite combinations of variations: shape,
size, deformability, transparent packaging, mixed-material packaging, and so on.
Add to that SKUs rotating seasonally, especially in apparel and fast fashion.

This is precisely where modern deep learning-based artificial intelligence (AI)
excels: in using all these variations – literally billions of data points to
train on. The Covariant Brain leverages this training to enable robots in
warehouses around the world not only to perform pick-and-place operations like
sorter induction but also to learn and improve from each other continuously over
time.


INDUCTION ONTO A VARIETY OF SORTERS

Any robot you integrate into your induction process will need to adapt its
placement tactic to match the way your existing system operates. As such, it’s
important to look for a robotic system that will work with your existing
sorters, whether you have a Eurosort split tray sorter, a KNAPP pocket sorter,
or a Tompkins AGV-based tSort.




SPEED AND PRECISION

In both manual and robotic operations, it’s not uncommon for sorters to jam due
to inaccurate placement of items, leading to downtime. Oftentimes, this occurs
when there is a fast-moving unit sorter where the person or robot doing the
placing struggles to drop the item they’re placing in the exact right position
as the belt or tray moves by quickly. Accounting for this with a robotic system
takes purposeful and innovative solutions designed to not only match the speed
of a person performing inducting but also increase accuracy.

For example, at Covariant, we’ve designed one sorter induction solution
specifically to induct onto fast-moving sorters. We use a top-mounted
accelerator that drops the item onto an empty sorter slot with accuracy. Because
it is designed with apparel in mind, the item is dropped flat, without bunching
up and risking jamming the sorter. See the image below for an example.




SEAMLESS INTEGRATION

A robotic induction system should be tailored to specifically fit into your
existing operations and workflow without requiring disruptive floorplan
reconfiguration and workflow changes. It should work not only with the type of
sorter you have, but also with your existing systems, like your warehouse
management system (WMS) and order management system (OMS).


ROBOTIC SORTER INDUCTION: THE SMART INVESTMENT FOR YOUR WAREHOUSE OPERATIONS

In times when ecommerce demand continues to fluctuate, and finding labor can be
challenging, investing in AI Robotics can help you continue to increase
operational efficiency. Covariant’s robotic sorter induction is the perfect
solution to help take your automation strategy to the next level. To learn more
contact us today.









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