Amazon has unveiled Vulcan, a groundbreaking warehouse robot that can “feel” items it handles, marking a significant advancement in the company’s automation efforts. The robot, currently operating in a Spokane, Washington facility, employs AI-powered sensors to determine the precise pressure and torque needed for each object it manipulates.
Vulcan represents a departure from Amazon’s previous warehouse robots, which primarily relied on cameras and suction cups to handle items. With its innovative gripper technology, the robot can manipulate approximately 75% of the million unique items stored at the Spokane warehouse, a capability previously limited to human workers.
“It doesn’t matter if the robot has legs or wheels or it’s bolted to the floor. I think the thing that makes the robot useful is having that sense of touch so that it can interact in high contact and high clutter environments,” said Aaron Parness, Director of Amazon Robotics, who led the development team.
The robot’s design includes what company engineers describe as an “end of arm tooling” resembling “a ruler stuck onto a hair straightener.” This unique apparatus, combined with force feedback sensors, allows Vulcan to push items around within storage compartments without damaging them and adjust its grip strength based on the size and shape of each item it handles.
Amazon began developing Vulcan three years ago with a small team that has since grown to more than 250 employees. The project aims to improve workplace safety by reducing the need for workers to use ladders to reach high shelves or bend to access low ones.
“We have a ladder that we have to step onto several dozen times a day during your ten-hour shift. There is a lot of reaching. We have to lunge and squat. So it’s a lot of tough body mechanics,” explained Kari Freitas Hardy, an Amazon worker in Spokane.
Vulcan currently operates at about the same speed as a human worker and can handle items weighing up to 8 pounds. For safety reasons, it works behind a fence, separated from human employees.
While Amazon hasn’t disclosed the development costs, Parness indicated that the technology represents a significant business opportunity. “Vulcan can interact with the world in a more human-like manner, and that gives us a lot more process paths that we can use automation to bring down the cost that our customer pays, and the speed with which we can deliver those products,” he said.
The company plans to deploy Vulcan in additional U.S. and German facilities in 2026. A variant of the robot designed to pick specific items from inventory is already undergoing testing in Hamburg, Germany.
Industry experts suggest robots like Vulcan might offer additional benefits beyond labor savings, including reduced product return rates due to fewer picking errors. However, Amazon emphasizes that humans will continue working alongside robots in its warehouses for the foreseeable future, with automation potentially creating new, higher-skilled jobs in robot maintenance and operation.
For more information about how Vulcan works, visit CNBC’s exclusive video showing the robot in action at the Spokane warehouse.