Knapp has announced it will continue to work with AI robotics company Covariant to expand the market presence of its intelligent robot solution for more efficient warehouses.
The collaboration has implemented multiple projects together, with Knapp’s Pick-it-Easy at the forefront of the work. The robot’s ability to handle a wide range of items and suitability for various sector applications have proven its value in improving warehouse efficiency across numerous industries, the partnership said.
Powered by an AI platform or the ‘Covariant Brain’, Pick-it-Easy Robot can grip items of various sizes, weights and shapes, as well as items with different types of surface and packaging: from cubical, round and cylindrical items to bottles and polybags and items with transparent surfaces or reflective packaging.
According to the partnership, another essential advantage is the gentle and space-optimised placement of the articles in the order tote. Thanks to its versatility, the Pick-it-Easy Robot can be used in a number of different industries, such as e-commerce, food retail, electronics, cosmetics, fashion and pharma.
Using its powerful camera system and AI-based object recognition software, the robot can also determine the ideal grip point and picking speed. Equipped with machine learning, the robot learns continuously while picking. It can also access collective intelligence from around the globe made available by cloud robotics, offering true added value to Knapp customers. Whenever one robot learns, the knowledge it acquires is immediately available in all the other robot stations.
Several customers in North America, Europe and Australia, such as US pharmaceutical wholesaler McKesson, run warehouses with an automation solution combined with the Pick-it-Easy Robot. Using its Covariant Brain the robot is able to recognise different packaging and characteristics on the medicinal products.
Furthermore, the robot processes orders fully automatically, while fulfilling all the legal requirements to ensure patient safety.
“US medicine packaging is very complex, posing a great challenge to fully automatic robotic picking. Getting there was not exactly easy, but today we can pick a large part of the product range with the Pick-it-Easy Robot,” said Todd Kleinow, vice president of strategic distribution and operations at McKesson.
Knapp (Stand 310) is at Robotics and Automation 2022 on 01-02 November at the Coventry Building Society Arena. For more details, go to www.roboticsandautomation.co.uk
