With the increase of robots performing tasks in the warehouse, there is a risk of injury.
Just this past December an Amazon robot tore open a can of bear repellant at the company's New Jersey warehouse sending 24 workers to the hospital. Thirty other workers were treated on the scene.
One solution to this problem is a wearable safety-type vest that can alert a robot that a person is around.
Last year Amazon began rolling out such a belt, as reported by Brian Heater in TechCrunch.
Designed by Amazon Robotics, the vest is comprised of a pair of suspenders, with built-in sensors that are attached to an electronic utility belt.
“In the past, associates would mark out the grid of cells where they would be working in order to enable the robotic traffic planner to smartly route around that region. Amazon Robotics vice presdient Brad Porter told TechCrunch.
"What the vest allows the robots to do is detect the human from farther away and smartly update its travel plan to steer clear without the need for the associate to explicitly mark out those zones.”
Read the full article here.
