Online grocery stores  doing a intricate coordination with software, artificial intelligence, Robots, vans and workers. At Ocado warehouse outside Luton, hundreds of robots are whizzing around a grid, collecting items for online orders efficiently with speed and precision. Ocado had been using these unique robots to collect and distribute products, bringing them to staff, who pack them into boxes for delivery. Roboits zoom around the grid , bring items to robotic arms, which reach out and grab what they need for customer’s  shop.  Boxes of tea, coffee, packets of crumpets, peanuts are all grabbed by the arms using a suction cup on the end. At Ocado 100 engineers have spent years of training the artificial intelligence to take on that task efficiently. James Matthews, CEO of Ocado reveals how the AI has to interpret all the information coming from its cameras. “ What is an object? Where are the edges of that object? How would one grasp it?”. AI has to configure how to move the arm and accelerate in a way without flinging it across the room and place it in a bag? “ he says.

The Ocado Luton warehouse has 1,400 staff and 44 robotic arms, which accounts for 15 per cent of the products that flow through the facility, handling about 400, 000 items in a week leaving the rest to be handled by staff at picking stations. The staff also handle items that robots are not yet trained for yet, like wine bottles which are heavy and have curved surfaces, making them difficult to handle. In two years Ocado expects the robots to handle 70 per cent of the products, with fewer human staff.

Ocado is hoping to sell its automation technology to companies like McKeeson, a large pharmaceuticals distributor in Canada.

 Asda uses Swisslog, a Swiss automation firm and Norway’s Autostore. In the US, Walmart has been automating parts of its supply chain using robotics from an American company called Symbotic.