A pilot program has recently tested how drones can be used as part of advanced warehouse inventory management systems.
Inventory management company Verity specializes in designing AI-powered systems that track inventory with drone. Until now, there has been one major issue, that is drones cannot identify inventory by its barcode if it is out of sight. A new system is being tested that uses RFID. This enables drones to identify out-of-sight items and even track individual items inside boxes. Tests have demonstrated that the drones can scan RFID tags with 99.9% accuracy and at a fast rate of 1,000 tags a second.
The drone tests were held at the Maersk facility in California over a three-month period. Over 1500 flights were monitored in which 80 million RFID tags were read. Jason Walker, Head of Maersk Contract Logistics for North America was pleased with the test results, and commented:
“This technology enhances the capabilities of our team, empowering them to focus on more strategic tasks and drive continuous improvement.”
RFID tags are inexpensive, but have a limited range. They require mobile and agile readers. A warehouse picking operator with pick and pack trolleys needs to be close to an item and use a handheld scanner to identify the item before it is ready to be packed. This works fine for order picking, but is not very efficient for inventory management.
The Verity drones track items throughout the warehouse cycle, including supplier delivery, order picking and dispatch. This inventory data is then sent to warehouse management systems.
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