Came across this, this morning regarding drones scanning barcodes in warehouses, which the company say’s saves time, money & virtually no risk to workers whatsoever, here’s a snippet below.
Leveraging Al and computer vision, Anyline’s industry-leading barcode scanning technology can now be deployed in commercially available drones to autonomously scan inventory across entire warehouses. The drone can be programmed to fly autonomously along a set flight path, or can be controlled manually using an app, which also displays in real-time what the drone Is scanning. Features such as continuous scanning and multi-barcode capture enable uninterrupted scanning of up to 30 barcodes within the camera frame simultaneously that can be integrated directly with your inventory management systems. Increase your inventory visibility, reduce costs, and eliminate safety risks for your workers.
Drones versus manual scanning.
Autonomous drones can be managed by one employee and inventory can be counted during normal operating hours.
Drone counts are highly accurate and can be performed in batches or across an entire warehouse. Counts can be taken more frequently, and safety risks are virtually non-existent.
Warehouse inventory audits and cycle counts have been very manual processes done outside of normal operating hours, requiring tall ladders or workers lifted via forklifts as high as 50 ft (15m) off the ground to reach the top of shelves, up and down every aisle. It’s expensive, requires multiple employees, is prone to human error, and puts workers at risk.
This is quite a cool idea - being in logistics myself I am keen to see this type of solution in action. I did see another system that used much larger drones than the Mini 3 pro ( think it was Amazon could be wrong ) that did a similar sort of thing but they were fully autonomous where this system seems to suggest there is still an operator.
To have something like this that can zip down an isle and capture the stock based on barcodes is a great idea as it removes the need for someone on a high lift forklift truck doing inventory when they can be doing picking tasks . Much better use of assets I would say.
I agree I think there telling porky’s with the drone used, on close inspection I believe maybe it’s the enterprise range, the FNS on the controller is a good tell tale sign, also the M3E on the screen display,
Amazing, the drone can scan barcodes, but in any warehouse the barcode doesn’t always relate to what’s in the box. A drone isn’t going to weigh any box during an audit. That’s still going to have to be done manually
I’d quite agree, I was talking to my neighbour / mate across the rd last night about this as he’s an instructor fork lift trainer for mentor, I was telling him as per video above, he said it would take a lot to make this work, planning & money etc as so much would have to be changed / modernised, he highlighted pretty much what you said regarding the labels / barcodes & basically would cost a fortune,
If it was doable I very much doubt it would be possible in your average warehouse either, I think maybe this is aimed at warehouses on a very very large scale, who knows just a guess.
I can see this working with RFID but more difficult with barcode scanners.
With the RFID tags on the products and a reader on the drone they would only need to to fly within the proximity of the item to pick up the data.
I would think this would be useful for inventory cycle count again only with RFID on all products.
Some of our depots can only get two aisle counted in a shift, and that is only on the pick locations at ground level. With a drone all the reserve locations, some 15m above the ground could be counted.
haha just noticed in the clip the guy in the cage is using a Symbol 9190 scanner, we ditched them about 4 years ago.
and then again a mini 3 pro wouldn’t perform well inside without GPS
