Amazon Robot Packer Coordination

Shaan tells a story about how Amazon has revolutionized warehouse automation with their robotic system.

"There's this amazing video of Amazon warehouse robots. They look like these square versions of a skateboard with wheels. In the warehouse, there's thousands of these robots and here's how they work: When an order comes in, they know this person over here needs to pack the next 10 orders. These orders need specific bins, so the robots drive under the racks with the bins, pick them up about 2 inches off the ground, and drive the huge rack of bins to the human.

The human just sits in their chair and picks the items to put in boxes. The robot takes it away. All these robots never crash into each other because they're synced to one brain - one brain is driving all of them at once.

This is way faster than the old way. I've packed thousands of orders myself where you get a ticket, an order, and you have to walk to bin 308 in the far left corner, then walk to bin 102 because they ordered these two items. You try to do maybe 2 or 3 orders at once, however many you can carry with your little tray back to your packing station. Then you pack all those orders. The automation is so much faster."