ABB and Silicon Valley AI start-up, Covariant, have announced a partnership to bring AI-enabled robotic solutions to market, starting with an autonomous warehouse order fulfilment solution.
According to ABB, while robots are “ideally suited” to repetitive tasks, they have thus far lacked the intelligence to identify and handle tens of thousands of constantly changing products in dynamic environments.
As such, the partnership aims to develop intelligent robots capable of working alongside humans across a range of applications including logistics, warehousing, and parcels and mail sorting, collectively learning and improving with every task completed.
The solution being developed by both companies uses Covariant Brain, a universal AI designed to enable robots to see, reason and act in the world around them, completing tasks too complex and varied for conventional programmed robots.
Covariant’s software reportedly enables robots to engage in reinforcement learning: adapting to new tasks on their own through trial and error and therefore constantly broadening the range of objects they can pick.
The first installation of the ABB and Covariant AI-enabled solution is currently deployed at Active Ants, a provider of e-commerce fulfilment services for web businesses in Utrecht in the Netherlands.
Sami Atiya, president of ABB’s robotics and discrete automation business, said: “Our partnership with Covariant is part of our strategy to expand into new growth sectors such as distribution and e-commerce and to leverage the scaling potential in these fields.
“Through the combination of artificial intelligence with our robots, we are opening an entire new field of opportunities and applications for a variety of industries.”
The partnership with Covariant follows ABB’s global competition in 2019 to assess 20 AI technology start-ups on their approach to solutions for 26 real-world picking, packing and sorting challenges.
