Japanese Convenience Store Introduces Seven-Foot Robots To Help Stock Shelves
Video screenshot via Telexistence
FamilyMart, Japan’s second-largest convenience store chain, is combatting a labor shortage by employing robots to perform regular stocking on the shop floor.
The Model-T robot, made from robotics firm Telexistence, is seven feet tall and is powered by a human operator, who uses a virtual-reality system to remotely control the machine.
Each robot has a variety of motions that will allow it to lift and move products when needed. The lag time between the human operator and the Model-T robots is just 50 milliseconds.
So, when the human operator makes a slight movement, the robot immediately picks up on it and moves as instructed.
As of now, the robots are just stocking plastic bottles, but they will soon be trained to move popular Japanese bento boxes and rice balls within the convenience store.
FamilyMart states that the robots will help with labor shortage and create new job opportunities. In a statement, the company says that the robots will also “lead to the reduction of human-to-human contact to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
The company hopes to launch the Model-T robots in 20 stores by 2022 and continue to launch a robot in every one of its stores in the future.
Take a look at how it works below.
[via LADBible, cover image via Telexistence]
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