RightHand Robotics debuts a new pick and place system

Published April 8, 2019

Reliable pick and place systems have long been a kind of Holy Grail among industrial robotics. The job of moving products in and out of bins is high among the jobs that many warehouse and fulfillment centers are looking to automate.

For a few years now, RightHand Robotics has been one of the more exciting startups in the space. The company has managed to drum up $34 million in funding from investors like Menlo Ventures, GV and Playground Global. This week at the ProMat conference in Chicago, the company unveiled RightPick2, the second generation of its piece-picking solution.

The news comes as the company notes that the previous version of its platform has crossed the 10 million pick threshold. This latest version features a number of upgrades on both the hardware and software fronts.

That list includes the fifth generation of the industrial gripper, which is capable of lifting up to 2 kg, coupled with new depth-sensing cameras from Intel and an improved arm from Universal Robots. That’s coupled with improvements to the system’s RightPick.AI vision/motion control software.

The results, as evidenced in the above demo, are pretty impressive. The system is speedy, fluid and capable of picking up a versatile array of different products, while capturing barcodes for order fulfillment in the process.