China’s Geek+ Unveils Plan for Fully Autonomous Warehouses

BEIJING -- Beijing-based warehouse robotics provider Geek+ has introduced its strategy for building warehouses capable of working without human involvement throughout 24 hours using its physical AI in addition to robots.

The company’s 24/7 Warehouse Autonomy Plan is expected to expand automation not only to certain processes within the warehouse but to the whole facility.

At present, Geek+ provides autonomous mobile robots for moving items, storing and picking up goods, as well as delivering products to picking stations. Nevertheless, some tasks related to the transportation of oddly shaped objects and solving unforeseen situations remain within the scope of responsibilities of humans.

To solve the issues, the company will use the Gravity framework for physical AI and the Gravity 4D World Model to provide enhanced manipulation by robots, task planning and responses to the changes within the warehouse.

This solution will allow robots to understand movements of different objects, planning of actions and performing tasks that cannot be done by standard programming.

The plan also includes improvement of Warehouse Brain platform. It will be composed of robot control, warehouse operation, and monitoring system. The firm intends to incorporate further applications of AI-based solutions to help assign tasks, manage robot traffic, diagnose malfunction and optimize operations of the warehouse.

Another goal includes making robotic systems capable of detecting problems and resolving them with minimal human involvement, especially at night time.

According to Geek+, the data on operations collected from the installed systems would be used to enhance their AI capabilities and transfer knowledge of robots to other warehouses.

The firm did not state when it expects to make the fully autonomous warehouses operational or name the client whose warehouse works according to such a concept.

Geek+ claims that robotic systems were introduced in commercial usage in more than 40 countries, yet there is no evidence that any of these warehouses works continuously without human interaction.