Locus Robotics formed after Amazon acquired Kiva Systems, like its competitors Fetch Robotics and 6 River Systems. The company’s founders, Bruce Welty and Mike Johnson, had been operating third-party fulfillment centers for online retailers powered by Kiva’s robots, among other technologies. But when Amazon stopped selling Kiva’s robots, and made them proprietary, they found themselves in need of tools to help associates get done quickly the job of picking and packing orders. Generally, LocusBots can rove autonomously through warehouses and find a position near a shelf where an item requires picking by an associate. Once loaded by a person, the robots carry items from the aisles to packers who put them into boxes and send them out the door. The old navigation tech for the LocusBot worked something like Google Maps with a layer of task-planning and computer vision on top of it, explained the company’s Chief of Operations Mike Johnson. In other words, the robots had a pre-established map they’d rely on for some of their routing, and they’d respond to data coming through cameras and other on-board sensors locally.

Product:

• Country: USA 
• Company: Locus Robotics