Thinking Robots

Pumpkin orange, with violet-coloured lights and white oval badges proclaiming its name – 3512 – a robotic drive unit rolls between the legs of a hanging garment rack pod and begins spinning in circles. As it twirls, its four-spoked metallic lifter rises, makes contact with the bottom of the pod and lifts the entire rack off the floor. Then, 3512 pivots again to face the direction it intends to travel. With the rack carefully balanced, 3512 heads for the picking station. It travels from deep inside one of the aisles of pods filled with a variety of merchandise – including items such as emergency kits, folded paper road maps and movie DVDs – and heads toward its delivery destination. 3512 navigates by reading 2D barcode place markers stuck to the floor in a grid formation inside the robots’ enclosure.

Download the full press release below.