When exploring potential ways to advance automation at your warehouse or distribution centre, coming across drones is a likely occurrence.
While they might seem like science fiction, recent years have seen warehouse drones become a practical reality. Drone technology has achieved a level where devices can now dependably and safely navigate indoor spaces and perform useful tasks.
Warehouse drones are essentially aerial robotic platforms designed for indoor operation in warehouses and distribution hubs. As they only fly indoors, drones don’t need to meet aviation regulations, but must be capable of operating safely without global positioning satellite (GPS) signals.
In this explanatory article, we’ll take a deep dive into warehouse drones, answering common questions and exploring their role in automating on-site process. Read on to keep your information up to date.
What are the drones used in warehouses?
Companies creating drones for warehouse use have adopted two different methods of developing a practical solution.
While some select to adapt existing commercial drones to create warehouse drones, others are developing built-for-purpose drones of their own.
Regardless, every warehouse drone, whether it is a commercial product or custom-built, will have similar components when it comes to hardware. These include cameras, processors and measurement sensors. Additionally, they must all be able to fly safely indoors and navigate tight spaces while operating without a compass.
Some enterprises have selected to build a bespoke warehouse drone to ensure that the drone’s hardware is specifically suited to their application. However, the number of custom drones that are built is substantially smaller in scale compared to the production of commercial drones.
Companies that choose scratch-built drones for their warehouse not only need to construct all-new hardware, but they must also write proprietary software to run on it, and then write application-specific software that allows users to operate it.
Enterprises using commercial drones in their warehouses feel that building bespoke hardware is unnecessary when there is existing value offered in the application. Using commercial drones, firms can purchase the hardware and then build the intelligent software required for autonomous flight of the drone. The drones then perform visual data collection for immediate assessment, while the inventory teams carry out the analytics.
How much does a warehouse drone cost?
The price of the most powerful warehouse drone can be as high as over £700; however, the cost of implementing drones in a material handling environment is impacted by multiple factors.
These include the size of the distribution hub or warehouse where they will see active use, the frequency of data collection in stock taking and cycle counting, and the accuracy of counting expected.
It is understood that a custom-built warehouse drone will always cost more than using a commercial drone design. As there are now hundreds of thousands of different drones in active use in recreational, commercial and security applications, there are three key benefits to buying a commercial drone straight off the shelf.
Commercial drones are readily available, relatively inexpensive and adaptable. All drones have software development kits that allow for building applications, similar to how smartphones can install third party apps.
How are drones used in inventory management?
Usually, a warehouse drone’s task is to perform remote sensory operations onsite.
Drones use onboard camera equipment to capture data on stock stored in the warehouse. It’s important to note that warehouse drones don’t physically move stock or pick orders in distribution centres. Instead, they are a practical element of a warehouse’s automation system, and they assist with data collection.
The drones collect stock data for analysis by inventory teams in the same manner that a fixed security camera captures data. However, drones offer greater flexibility that allows operators to move the camera freely in 3D space. Extremely agile, warehouse drones can easily access narrow aisles and fly upwards to examine the content of inventory stored on the highest racks. As a result, a simple way to see a warehouse drone is as a flexible camera.
Warehouse drones are programmed with a specific flight path or task based on pallet locations that onsite inventory teams wish to scan. The warehouse drones fly to each bin location on their planned route, capturing images of each location. The images are analysed locally to supply inventory analytics instantly. When there is Wi-Fi connectivity, images are uploaded to company cloud storage, where they are analysed and compared against data in the warehouse’s automated management system.
While warehouse drones can offer strong support as part of an automated system, their role is not designed to replace human operators onsite physically interacting with stock.
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