Robots Are Looking to Bring a Human Touch to Warehouses

Agility Robotics, Figure AI and Boston Dynamics are among companies designing robots more closely modeled on human beings for use in distribution centers. The companies say their devices will help warehouse operators mitigate labor shortfalls and eliminate the need to redesign warehouses to match the capabilities of machines.

Logistics operators have been adding automation to their warehouses for years to speed up the stacking and retrieving of goods and to take some of the most burdensome, repetitive tasks off workers. Many of the devices are designed to work in concert with employees by taking on tasks such as hauling heavy goods or bringing totes of items directly to workers.

Humanoid robots take that automation a step further, seeking to stand in place of a human employee.

Agility Robotics, which has received funding from e-commerce giant Amazon.com, has made a human-shaped robot called Digit that is teal, silver and black with white animated eyes. The device stands 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs 141 pounds and can carry up to 35 pounds.

In one video demonstration, Digit’s arms and legs move smoothly as it crouches to pick up a bin of items off a warehouse shelf. The robot lifts the container and walks with staccato steps over to a conveyor belt to place it down.

Jonathan Hurst, chief robot officer at Corvallis, Ore.-based Agility, said its humanlike shape gives Digit “the ability to just walk into existing infrastructure and existing workflows and start to do tasks." He said the robot is designed to take on jobs warehouse operators have trouble hiring people to do, including repetitive roles like loading and unloading storage containers.

Some companies, seeking to address labor shortages and rising labor costs, have moved toward building warehouses that are entirely automated, known in the logistics sector as dark warehouses. That level of automation can cost tens of millions of dollars and can require new construction. U.K.-based technology provider Ocado Group has built several automated fulfillment centers that use robotics to move bins across a grid system without aisles for human workers to walk through.

Hurst said Agility’s human-shaped robots are instead meant for warehouse operators that aren’t looking to remodel their buildings.

“Multipurpose robots that operate on our terms in human spaces are an integral part of our future," Hurst said. “Picking up a tote off a shelf and putting it on a conveyor, that is going to exist for 50 years as these other automation things start to come into place."

Rueben Scriven, research manager for the warehouse-automation sector at research firm Interact Analysis, said human-looking robots present a different challenge for companies adding automation to their warehouses. With widespread technology like robotic arms and automated storage and retrieval systems, “the threat of your work is less vivid," he said. “But if you have a humanoid robot, that is literally job loss personified."

The robotics developers say their logistics customers aren’t replacing jobs but looking to fill roles in areas where operators can’t find workers.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Figure AI said it is looking into warehousing tasks for the potential first application of its humanoid robot. The goal is for the robot to do everything a human can, including picking and packing orders, unloading trucks and unpacking pallets of shipments. Brett Adcock, founder and chief executive of Figure, said the company is “seeing a real need to bring in some solution that can help do human-type work" without a large upfront cost or disrupting daily warehouse operations.

Still, the humanoid robots do need breaks, even if not for the same reasons as humans.

Digit can operate for two hours with a one-hour charge. That is well short of an eight-hour shift, but Agility says the machine is meant to work as part of a fleet, where two robots work while one charges. Figure said it is designing its robots to operate for five hours off a 30-minute charge.

Boston Dynamics, one of the world’s most famous robotics developers for its four-legged automated “dog," is looking to address some of those challenges with a device it created for warehouse use out of more than a decade of research into humanoid robots.

The Waltham, Mass.-based company, majority-owned by Hyundai Motor Group, unveiled in 2021 its robot called Stretch, which has a broad base to keep the device steady and a battery that lasts 16 hours per charge.

With its single arm attached to a vacuum gripper, Stretch looks more like an industrial engineer’s vision of a warehouse worker than a humanoid robot. But the combination of mobility and handling capability led contract logistics provider DHL Supply Chain, part of Deutsche Post DHL Group, to start rolling out Stretch robots this year to take packages from trailers and onto a conveyor at several of its U.S. warehouses.

Kevin Blankespoor, general manager of warehouse robotics at Boston Dynamics, said the company is still researching a two-handed device it calls Atlas, but that Stretch fills a gap in the meantime.

Warehouse operators “want to get the job done," Blankespoor said. “Most of them aren’t particularly attached to any specific type of robot as long as it gets the job done at the right rate at the right price at the right level of safety."