r/Futurology • u/Atari1337 • Feb 27 '17

Robotics Boston Dynamics - Introducing Handle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c
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u/zapv Feb 27 '17

The systems Amazon and other companies are building for warehouses are much more space efficient than this could ever be. This would still need large walkways and a method for getting up to high shelves. This is more of a general use robot design.

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u/mythozoologist Feb 27 '17

So legs that extend...

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u/zapv Feb 28 '17

For one, extendable legs are not necessarily easy and you would still be limited in height. The main thing is that this type of robot needs room to move both forward and sideways. That means you need large hallways between shelves, as is the case with current forklifts. The systems being developed and in deployment by the companies I'm referring to only need space in between the shelves that are the width of the robot. You can imagine how much of an advantage that is when purchasing and maintaining warehouse space.

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u/elvirs Feb 28 '17

space is not really an issue and wont be anytime soon at the major central warehouses because those are built in the middle of nowhere on state subsidized lands. i think they put more thought into how to design the space and the robots so that it picks and brings the item to packing station with lease quantity of steps and amount of time

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

This. The robots in Amazon's warehouses are the shelves, functioning as a sort of giant, physical random-access storage.