E-commerce powerhouse Amazon took the wraps off its latest warehouse robot this week, saying its “Titan” model is a mobile unit designed to take on extra-heavy lifting in fulfillment centers.
Shaped like an oversized, square “Roomba” vacuum, Titan can lift up to 2,500 pounds, which is about two times more weight than Hercules, the most broadly deployed robot within Amazon’s operations. With all that strength, Titan’s first task will be to carry larger, bulkier items like small household appliances or pallets of pet food and gardening equipment, the company said.
The Seattle-based company will deploy the new model first at its SAT1 fulfillment center in San Antonio, Texas. That facility launched in 2013 to process larger, bulkier items and the use of this new technology will help modernize the site, supporting both workplace safety and efficiency, Amazon said.
Engineers at the company created Titan by adopting several technologies from previous generations of its mobile robots, including the battery and charging management solution from Hercules, and the computer vision, obstacle detection, and user control systems from the Xanthus mobile robot. Titan also uses hardware components from Proteus to manage its operating system as it plans, executes, and interfaces with other technologies within the facility.
“We see many possibilities for how we can use Titan going forward, including with containerized storage solutions like Sequoia, where it could transport inventory across our storage floor and bring it directly to employees,” the company said in a release.
Sequoia, which is now operating at an Amazon fulfillment center in Houston, Texas, integrates multiple robot systems to containerize inventory into totes, bringing together mobile robots, gantry systems, robotic arms, and an ergonomic employee workstation.
