Progress in Autonomous Picking as Demonstrated by the Amazon Robotic Challenge

The automation of the picking process is a longheld dream in intra-logistics. while the expert judgment in recent years was, that there is no immediate applicability to be expected for applications in areas, where the variety of products is high. However, the recent advances in computer science, mechanical engineering and material handling systems design have moved the field substantially forward. In this article we want to show, how the Amazon Robotic Challenge has driven this development process and how capable the technology is. The Amazon robotic Challenge (ARC) and its increasingly difficult challenges are described first. Then the applied technology in soft- and hardware and its performance increase are described. The performance of important participants in the past is estimated and finally the approach of the team IFLpiro is presented. Finally, the impact of the results on the future implementation of material handling systems is discussed