OTTO Motors and Boston Dynamics create warehouse pick-and-place application

Kitchener, Ontario’s OTTO Motors has partnered with Boston Dynamics on warehouse automation applications.

The robotics companies created a video of a distribution centre testbed to demonstrate that Boston Dynamics’s logistics robot, Handle, can be used to pick boxes and building pallets and place them on top of OTTO’s autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).

Last year, Boston Dynamics unveiled its Handle robot and Pick computer vision system for flexible, highly mobile automation technology in the warehouse. Since then, the team has integrated Pick’s box detection software into the Handle robot and sold and integrated Pick into industrial robotic workcells at sites around the world.

The Handle robot completed proof-of-concept trials with customers in their warehouses last year and Boston Dynamics is working with OTTO Motors to further automate the logistics space.

Check out the application:

“We’ve built a proof-of-concept demonstration of a heterogeneous fleet of robots building distribution centre orders to provide a more flexible warehouse automation solution,” says Kevin Blankespoor, Boston Dynamics VP of product engineering. “To meet the rates that our customers expect, we’re continuing to expand Handle’s capabilities and optimizing its interactions with other robots like the OTTO 1500 for warehouse applications.”

OTTO Motors uses its AMRs like the OTTO 1500 to provide mission-critical deliveries within a variety of industrial environments. “It’s exciting to engage with other cutting-edge robotics companies like Boston Dynamics,” says Ryan Gariepy, CTO and co-founder of OTTO Motors.

Boston Dynamics and OTTO will be demoing their products at MODEX, a trade show for supply chain, manufacturing, and distribution automation, from March 9-12 in Atlanta, Georgia.