Nov. 10 (UPI) -- Amazon on Thursday unveiled a new robot that can pick up items of various sizes and could one day assist workers on the job.
The robot is named Sparrow, and is a robotic arm that can handle millions of items. The robot functions using computer vision and artificial intelligence, and is the company's first robotic system that can detect and pluck individual products.
"Sparrow will take on repetitive tasks, enabling our employees to focus their time and energy on other things, while also advancing safety," Amazon said in a statement. "At the same time, Sparrow will help us drive efficiency by automating a critical part of our fulfillment process so we can continue to deliver for customers."
According to CNBC, a video of Sparrow shows the robotic arm picking up a board game, a bottle of vitamins and a set of sheets - all the kinds of items that might flow through one of the company's warehouses - and deftly placing them in crates.
"This is not just picking the same things up and moving it with high precision, which we've seen in previous robots," Jason Messinger, principal technical product manager of robotic manipulation at Amazon Robotics, told CNBC.
While Amazon maintains that its technology will make its warehouses safer, previous reporting has shown the opposite. An investigation by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting found the company's warehouses with robots have higher injury rates than facilities without automation.
