The bot sees everything: storage drones with AI functions will appear in Russia

Russian scientists from NTI have created a drone inventory, a warehouse control project using drones and artificial intelligence. The system makes it possible to effectively use UAVs in logistics to monitor warehouse balances and has no direct analogues in the Russian Federation due to the planned AI and computer vision functions. The complex collects and transmits data on inventory in real time and can be used on any type of bases without restrictions on purpose.

What is drone inventory

Russian engineers have developed a warehouse inventory system using quadrocopters equipped with artificial intelligence, which will speed up this process by 15 times. It is planned that the complex will collect and transmit data for monitoring balances in real time. This was reported in the NTI press service.

— The warehouse configuration with very narrow aisles helps optimize space, but poses challenges for traditional inventory processes that use heavy equipment such as forklifts. Lightweight but powerful unmanned aerial vehicles can move freely in confined spaces and at altitude, performing daily inventory checks. Simply put, the drone flies around the warehouse and records which goods are in which cell, and transmits the data to the warehouse management system, better known as WMS," Gleb Sapunkov, CEO of Robot, told Izvestia.

Photo: TASS/Sergey Fadeichev

During the inventory, the developed drone will collect information about the remaining goods in the warehouse by scanning barcodes. The data will then be transmitted to the dashboard for further analysis of the number of product units and management decision-making.

The development team has created software for navigation inside buildings based on artificial intelligence and computer vision, which will later be integrated with drones.

Calculate all waste: smart optical garbage sorter created in the Russian Federation

How technology will help efficiently recover glass, cardboard and plastic from tons of household junk

According to the calculations of the authors of the project, tracking of residues using drones is more than 10 times faster than traditional methods. As a result, the amount of manual labor for this task is reduced by about 90%, while the accuracy of this process is close to 100%. In terms of the work of one network that uses warehouses, this is thousands of saved man-hours, said Gleb Sapunkov.

— The main consumers of the solution should be large retail chains, including traditional grocery and construction retailers, as well as marketplaces. The team already has an agreement with one logistics center in Siberia, where the technology will be tested," explained the head of Robot&.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Sergey Lantyukhov

He considers the introduction of unmanned vehicles a natural way to develop warehouse services and notes that the technology can be used in warehouses of any kind without restrictions on the purpose of storage.

What are the pros and cons of the technology

The main issue will be the location of charging and cleaning stations for drones, control of the location of barcodes, and the relevance of navigation data, because a large number of objects moving in three planes will sooner or later lead to collisions and accidents, says Vyacheslav Bogachev, head of the laboratory at the NTI competence Center "Digital Materials Science: New Materials and Substances" at Moscow State Technical University.

Photo: Getty Images/picture alliance

Nikita Danilov, CEO and founder of Fly Drone, considers the logistics development promising, as it can significantly improve the economic component of production processes in warehouses. Drones don't get tired or make mistakes, unlike humans, so this is very important for inventory, he added. At the same time, the specialist noted that similar developments already exist on the market and they have shown their relevance and effectiveness in practice.

— There are problems with such projects, but they are standard for the entire unmanned industry. Basically, this is dependence on foreign manufacturers of individual drone components. Besides, time is money in logistics," Nikita Danilov added.

With its own code: Russia has mastered serial production of key components for UAVs

New navigation modules allow the drone to navigate not only by satellites, but also by mobile base stations

Such developments are very promising, but they have technical difficulties. Orientation and navigation in the confined spaces of warehouses is not easy. It is impossible to rely on satellite navigation both due to the small spaces in the warehouse and due to the fact that the roof degrades the signal quality. At the same time, RTK points (local antennas that transmit corrections to improve accuracy) and special tags in the warehouse can provide the necessary accuracy, says Yuri Molodykh, Director of development of NTI Up Great technology contests at the NTI Foundation.

— In Russia, such services are not developed or implemented, in the world, such tasks are solved somewhat differently: a system of scanners that are installed on each shelf and periodically check the remains on the shelves, followed by the transfer of information to the database. It's cheaper to manufacture, easier to develop, and basic to maintain," Vyacheslav Bogachev said.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Anna Selina

According to the expert, a drone is much more disciplined than a human and performs its assigned tasks accurately, and most importantly, it does it faster, without lunch and weekends. At the same time, there are a number of problems for the operators of the new technology — the rigidity of thinking, the availability of free labor and the unwillingness of business owners to spend money on innovation. And also injury risk, because there are still employees in the warehouse who may be injured in a collision with a drone.