Amazon's Vulcan Robot

Amazon's first robot with a sense of touch

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What should we make of Amazon’s latest robot prototype?

Amazon says the robot arm is a breakthrough in the perception of touch. Amazon’s rhetoric around robots has always been a little weird, as they replace more tasks that warehouse workers do, they position them as being about saftey. Introduced at the "Delivering the Future" event in Dortmund, Germany, Vulcan is set to “redefine efficiency and safety” in Amazon’s fulfillment centers. Right.

"Vulcan represents a fundamental leap forward in robotics," Parness says. "It's not just seeing the world, it's feeling it, enabling capabilities that were impossible for robots until now."

But what does it mean for a robotic arm to understand objects better? With the sense of touch—its ability to understand when and how it makes contact with an object—Vulcan unlocks new ways to improve our operations jobs and facilities.

A Robot that can feel what it touches

Amazon’s lineup of robots is getting longer - for instance there’s Sparrow, Cardinal, and Robin systems use computer vision and suction cups to move individual products or packages packed by human workers. Proteus, Titan, and Hercules lift and haul carts of goods around the fulfillment centers.

• Vulcan

• Sparrow

• Cardinal

• Robot

• Proteus

• Titan

• Hercules lift

• Hercules haul

This means warehouse workers at fulfilment centers are more and more having to work alongside robots.

Amazon is opening new automation opportunities by deploying its first robots that leverage force and touch sensing to improve material handling tasks.

Vulcan uses an arm that carries a camera and a suction cup that can work in tandem for picking up different things.

Vulcan can do what many Humans do

What makes Vulcan unique is that it is equipped with force feedback sensors and AI, giving it a sense of touch. This “sense of touch” allows Vulcan to manipulate objects with greater precision and dexterity. According to Amazon, Vulcan can pick and stow approximately 75% of the items in Amazon warehouses, moving them at speeds comparable to human workers.

• Better sensors

• Can pick up most items in Amazon warehouses

• Vulcan can currently handle (mid 2025) about three quarters of the millions items

Handle with Care

Amazon claims this is the first robot with this kind of touch-finesse. Vulcan is our first robot with a similar kind of finesse. Vulcan can easily manipulate objects within those compartments to make room for whatever it’s stowing, because it knows when it makes contact and how much force it’s applying and can stop short of doing any damage.

Amazon’s branding of robots is to work alongside human workers, but for how long will that be true? In fact working alongside these robots causes more injuries, not less - as Amazon claims.

Will robots do the job people did in the past in the 2030s?

More than 14 billion items are stowed by hand every year at Amazon warehouses. Amazon is hoping that Vulcan robots will be able to stow 80 percent of these items at a rate of 300 items per hour, while operating 20 hours per day.

Amazon is trying to claim that its new line of robots actually creates more jobs like robotic floor monitors to on-site reliability maintenance engineers. It’s all a rather cringe predicament.

Aaron Parness, Amazon’s director of robotics has had a lot of good things to say about Vulcan of course. But will Billions of robots like Vulcan be good for the world at the end of the 2030s?

According to Aaron:

🦾Vulcan can feel. Most robots stop or crash when they touch something unexpected, but Vulcan senses contact and adapts in real time.

📦It can pick from clutter. It's already learning to find and retrieve the right item from a densely packed shelf, with the accuracy and care needed to get orders right.

💭It can reason through mess. Continuous video and force feedback help the system make informed decisions about how to move in the physical world.

That sounds like a good cleaner for households.

We get confused sometimes between digital intelligence and physical intelligence.

Parness’ team has said “force is the language of manipulation.”

What will be the force of robots for the future?

The robots will be able to identify objects by touch using AI to work out what they can and can’t handle and figuring out how best to pick them up.

A world with automated physical intelligence is coming.