Eiratech Robotics, the Irish robotics company, has previewed its new generation Eirabot 5.0 that the firm says will play a central role in the robotics “goods-to-person” solution.

The Eirabot 5.0 was showcased at the Deliver #2 exhibition in Berlin this week. It features a compact design that enhances manoeuvrability, and has developments in hardware design that results in better performance monitoring as well as battery life.

According to Eiratech: “Eirabot 5.0 doesn’t require the installation of any major infrastructural changes to the existing warehouse environment – such as rails or conveyors – instead relying for guidance on fiducial labels placed on the warehouse floor, and the Eirasoft management system, communicated via industrial WiFi link and controlled by the onboard computer.”

Eiratech said that the using the “goods to person” model increases efficiency by targeting the 70% of time wasted walking and searching for items. According to the robotics company: “The interactive picking station guides the pickers to 100% accuracy and helps eliminate the multiple handling usually associated with order picking.”

While perhaps one of the most obvious of fulfilment centre tasks to automate, picking and packing is also one of the hardest due to the mental and physical processing that human fulfilment centre operatives do in their daily work. There is a big race taking place between a multitude of robotics companies to come up with a robot that will out-perform their human rivals. Even though the race has begun it may be a few years yet before mass fulfilment centre redundancies are on the cards… 
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