Amazon has more than 750,000 robots working in its fulfillment centers. Here are some of the things they can do.
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- Amazon's warehouse robots have come a long way since it acquired Kiva Systems in 2012.
- Robots can now perform a variety of tasks alongside employees in fulfillment centers.
- They can transport packages, sort individual items, and lift heavy objects.
Amazon's fleet of warehouse robots has swelled to more than 750,000 — and it continues to grow both in size and complexity.
Robots now perform a variety of tasks in Amazon's fulfillment centers, transporting packages around busy workspaces, sorting and consolidating items into storage systems, and making fit-to-size packaging.
The company's robotics efforts started when it acquired Kiva Systems for $775 million in 2012. Kiva's automated guided vehicles navigated by following barcode stickers placed on the floor of a warehouse. More than a decade later, Amazon now has more than 16,000 people working on robotics as its technology has become more sophisticated, including Proteus, a mobile robot that can move autonomously.
Investing in robotics helps Amazon accomplish its goal of getting packages to customers as quickly as possible, Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, said in a recent interview with Business Insider. Robots also create efficiencies that will help Amazon save money — some $10 billion a year by 2030, Morgan Stanley estimated in a recent research note.
"We can have faster delivery times because of the work that we've done in robotics," Brady said. "We can also pass on a lower cost. And we're creating thousands and thousands of jobs because of the work that we've done in robotics."
In August, Amazon hired three of the robotics startup Covariant's founders and licensed some of its foundation models to bring flexibility and fluidity to its robotics. The company also launched the Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund in 2022, investing in companies innovating in emerging tech like robots. That includes an investment in Agility Robotics, which makes a bipedal robot called Digit that Amazon is testing in fulfillment centers.
"We have a commitment for more than $1 billion for our startups, in order to help the startups and the community raise the capital that they need in order to do some of these great ideas that we think are going to help our customers," Brady said.
Here are some examples of the most advanced robots working in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and a bit about what they do:
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Unlike Amazon's earlier mobile robots, Proteus is fully autonomous. It uses sensors to navigate around objects in its path. It works more closely alongside Amazon employees and is not restricted to fenced-in areas.
Proteus travels under package carts and then transports them to the fulfillment center's loading dock. Brady compared its skills to how humans make their way around a crowded cocktail party.
"Typically a robot, when it sees maybe three, four, or five people gathered together, maybe they're all talking in a circle or something like that, it'll just stop and wait for the folks to kind of disband," he said. "When you're trying to navigate from one side of the room to the other — the Proteus system actually is capable of that. It doesn't just stop."
It launched in a Nashville fulfillment center in 2022.
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Sparrow is Amazon's first robotic arm to handle individual items rather than packages. It uses computer vision and AI to pick items from containers and place them into totes. It's roughly the size of an elephant trunk and capable of picking up more than 200 million different items, Brady said.
It was first introduced in a fulfillment center in Richmond, Texas, in 2023.
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Sequoia combines AI, robotics, and computer vision into one storage solution. Totes containing items are stored in a vertical platform system called a gantry. Robots then move those totes to ergonomic workstations where employees pick products to be shipped to customers. Once an employee picks items from the totes, Amazon's robotic arm, Sparrow, retrieves any remaining items and then consolidates them so that full totes can be returned to storage.
Amazon says Sequoia allows the company to identify and store products as much as 75% more quickly than before. It was first introduced in a Houston fulfillment center in 2023 and is at the center of Amazon's "next-generation" fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana, where it can handle more than 30 million items.
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Introduced in Sumner, Washington, in 2017, Hercules is one of Amazon's earlier mobile robots. It moves pods of items around a fenced area of the fulfillment center by using its 3D camera to reference markers on the floor. That camera also helps it differentiate between the various things that may be in its way, like people, pods, or other robots.
It can lift pods that weigh up to 1,250 pounds.
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Titan operates similarly to Hercules but can lift double the weight, up to 2,500 pounds. It made its debut in San Antonio in 2017 and is typically used for bigger items.
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First introduced in 2018, Pegasus is a cousin to the Hercules robot that incorporates a conveyor belt on top of the drive unit.
It takes finished packages from employees to a sorting area that's determined by the recipient's ZIP code. Using a route provided by Amazon's centralized planning system, it navigates until it finds the correct location, then drops packages through a chute in the floor to a loading dock below.
Pegasus works in conjunction with Amazon's robotic arm Robin.
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Robin was Amazon's first robotic arm, introduced in Lakeland, Florida, in 2022. It works in tandem with other robotic systems, picking up packages from conveyor belts and placing them on Pegasus mobile robots that bring them elsewhere in the fulfillment center. It also handles damaged packages.
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Cardinal, a robotic arm that was introduced in Nashville in 2022, lifts packages and sorts them into the appropriate cart before they are brought out to be loaded onto a truck. Robin and Cardinal both use suction to handle packages weighing up to 50 pounds.
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Xanthus is essentially a lighter version of Pegasus. It also has upgraded sensors that allow it to navigate obstacles from further away than Pegasus can.
Also called "X-bot," Xanthus is less expensive to produce than its previous iterations.
Xanthus was initially used for sorting in 2019, but Brady has previously said the company sees it being used elsewhere due to its flexibility.
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The packaging automation system uses sensors to measure an item and then create packaging that is properly sized for that item, eliminating excess materials. It previously made plastic bags but now makes paper bags. It was first introduced in Euclid, Ohio, in 2023.
