Global warehousing demand is on the rise as a result of increasingly complex supply chains and high demand from industries such as eCommerce and electronics. While the demand for warehouse space increases at breakneck speeds, the technologies that support warehouse automation and optimization are growing at a similar pace.
Development of warehouse automation technology has been quickly accelerated by autonomous retrieve and delivery robots, AI-powered warehouse transportation systems, autonomous manufacturing robots, and similar Industry 4.0 technologies. In recent years, the concept of “Dark Warehouses” and “Dark Stores” have quickly come into the fold as human involvement in many warehouse applications becomes redundant and/or unnecessary. This article looks at critical technologies that are used in dark warehouses, such as autonomous robots and smart-building sensors.
Dark Warehouse Background
Imagine standing outside of a local retail building, selecting the items that you wish to purchase, and asking for them to be retrieved. In a dark store, this order would be processed by the software and sent to a fleet of retrieval robots to identify which robot is best suited for retrieval of the items in your order. That robot then autonomously navigates to retrieve those items and packages them for your receipt.
In a dark warehouse, the same capabilities exist for both delivery and disbursement, meaning that a transportation vehicle such as a semi-truck can pull up to a docking station and the autonomous robots unpack the truck, sort the load, organize the shipment, and document all object placements for future distribution.
In traditional warehouses and stores, humans are involved at many, if not all, stages of a store and warehouse transaction. However, dark warehouses fundamentally do not require human intervention of any kind. As such, the warehouses themselves, in theory, could be completely pitch black. While some autonomous warehouse vehicles may use light-based cameras for navigation, the use of lights could be completely unnecessary if the proper navigation technologies are designed into the autonomous vehicles.
Key Technologies in a Dark Warehouse
Telemetry
Similar to the importance of GPS to global navigation, warehouse telemetry technologies are an important pillar in the navigation and location identification of autonomous robots. While each vehicle may have its onboard navigation system relative to other objects/robots, being able to identify its location in three dimensions within the warehouse is a necessity. There are many ways to retrieve telemetry data. It can be done with standard RF signals such as WiFi, Bluetooth, RFID, LoraWAN, Zigbee, or even cellular signals.
Call-and-Response Technology
Radar, ultrasonic sensors, proximity sensors, and LIDAR systems are often used in conjunction within autonomous navigation applications. All of these technologies rely on the fundamental transmission of a specific electromagnetic wave or sound wave, the reflection of that wave, and the reception of that wave. Based on the time-of-flight of that wave, the sensor can detect the distance to the reflecting object as well as the relative location. LIDAR sensor systems, in particular, are able to recreate full 360-degree point cloud models of their environment as a means of detecting, identifying, and actioning upon their surroundings.
Internet Connectivity
While many autonomous robots are able to operate without internet connectivity, the transfer of valuable location data is essential to the data infrastructure and operations within a dark warehouse. For example, a package’s location within a dark warehouse must be documented by the autonomous robot that delivers it, and that location must be shared with the Dark Warehouse data tracking infrastructure. This information sharing would most likely be done wirelessly via WiFi, Bluetooth, or other similar wireless protocols that allow the robot to maintain movement without stopping for data transfer. While this is already best practice in “smart everything” applications and some human-centered warehouses, internet connectivity is essential to the future of Industry 4.0 and robot-staffed dark warehouses.
Dark Days are Over
Dark warehouses are very quickly coming into popularity around the world given their operational and functional efficiencies. They are able to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without stoppage and with minimal resource consumption. While their capital investment is extremely high relative to a standard ‘empty’ warehouse, many bleeding-edge companies are adopting dark warehouse technologies and practices for the sake of long-term gain.
The technologies that power dark warehouses are also continually being adopted and improved upon to further advance adaptability and versatility. It may be much sooner than expected that an autonomous robot retrieves your weekly groceries from your favorite dark store.