Issue 39 Unmanned Systems Technology August/September 2021 Maritime Robotics Mariner l Simulation tools focus l MRS MR-10 and MR-20 l UAVs insight l HFE International GenPod l Exotec Skypod l Autopilots focus l Aquaai Mazu

73 if say you ship a few too many shirts to a clothing store, that’s fine, they can just sell them before next month’s delivery. But if you’re shipping hundreds of B2C orders to consumers’ homes every day, and accidentally add an item to an order or if one item is missing because of operator error, then consumers return or cancel orders. At that point retailers start losing money, complaints pile up, and before long they lose sales.” He adds that traditional goods-to-person (GTP) systems come with very heavy and costly infrastructure requirements, including lifts and conveyor belts, and that these scale with the size of the warehouse. Warehouse owners therefore face severe cost barriers to accommodating traditional GTP systems, and often have to choose between upgrading several smaller warehouses or use just one or two higher- throughput locations. “The Skypod system requires no equipment to move around: they zip around floors autonomously, and climb vertically up and down racks of goods without anyone needing to buy and install elevators for them,” Lueg says. “And the number of robots you need per warehouse doesn’t really change too much with size, decoupling the scale of customers’ investment from their locations and throughput.” In 2017, Cdiscount agreed to trial the Skypod at one of its warehouses to see how the system could improve its throughput and accuracy of stock management. The trial was deemed successful, and the French online retailer quickly made orders for 10 times the number of U3DVs used in its trial. European corporations Carrefour, E Leclerc and Decathlon have followed in the years since then, and Exotec has begun expanding beyond Europe, with US clothing retailer Gap and footwear producer Ariat International both having announced plans to integrate Exotec’s system in their warehouses earlier this year. “In a matter of a few months, Covid has doubled online retail demands worldwide – it previously took 20 years to Exotec Skypod U3DV | In operation The number of robots needed per warehouse doesn’t change much with size, decoupling users’ investment from their locations and throughput Unmanned Systems Technology | August/September 2021 Exotec’s Skypod UGV is unique among logistics robots for its ability to climb racks vertically, to retrieve or store stock (Images courtesy of Exotec) Skypods and humans operate in separate, cordoned-off areas within the giant e-commerce warehouses of Exotec’s customer base