However, Bob Trebilcock, Editor-in-Chief of Modern Materials Handling , sees the current development heading for a change: Picking Cobots are becoming increasingly intelligent and will fulfill the tasks set in all three R-criteria: Range of the objects, Rate of the pickings and Reliability. As active examples, he mentions solutions from RightHand Robotics at the Hudson's Bay Company , a combination of Vargo and Kindred as well as Cobots from IAM Robotics at the Rochester Drug Cooperative.

DHL has meanwhile tested a Cobot solution in Unna that leaves people with the task of picking and provides them with a smart transporter. The collaborative EffiBOT of the French startup Effidence automatically guides employees through the storage rooms - in the YouTube video it's easy to see how it works: The workers only have to lift the goods from the shelves and place them on the robot which is self-controlled and navigates by itself to the unloading station as soon as it has reached its filling limit. Previously, employees had to pull a cart by hand through the aisles and, after a few packages, push the cart themselves to the unloading station. The solution will be presented by DHL at the Robotics and AI Summit in Boston. "The robot supports workers by significantly reducing legwork" explains Adrian Kumar of DHL . The robot works independently in all types of storage areas, automatically detects obstacles and avoids sources of danger.