Watch Amazon's mesmerizing 'robot highway' where hundreds of machines rapidly sort packages for delivery
- Amazon unveiled a new package sorting system on Wednesday, powered by robots called Pegasus drives.
- The robots have cut down on missorted packages by 50%, Amazon said.
- Amazon also unveiled a new family of robots that it has named Xanthus.
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Amazon said Wednesday that it has developed a new package-sorting system that depends on hundreds of robots.
The system involves compact robots, called Pegasus drives, that pick up individual packages and carry them to various chutes associated with specific destinations.
The Pegasus drives are orange, squat, modular machines standing two feet high and three feet wide.
Individually, they don't look like anything remarkable. But when hundreds are working together in a warehouse, it's a mesmerizing sight, as illustrated in this video shared by Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president of operations.
Amazon said the new Pegasus system has helped cut down on missorted items by 50%.
The company revealed the system at its re:Mars conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday. It showed video of what one Amazon worker referred to as the "robot highway," where 800 Pegasus machines are furiously sorting and moving packages.
Amazon also said it's developing a new family of modular robots, called Xanthus, that have the flexibility to move single packages or pallets of packages with special attachments.
Here's an image of the new Xanthus.
