Amazon builds electronic vests to protect humans from robots

In order to protect workers from human-robot interaction, retail firm Amazon has built an electronic vest to keep them safe.

Amazon Robotics has created a new product to protect its workers from robots in the warehouses: Robotic Tech Vests, according to a report by Tech Crunch.

The vests are a pair of suspenders attached to an electronic utility belt. The vests work with sensors that can communicate with robotic systems. They send signals to nearby robots telling them to slow down in order to avoid a collision with human. The robots can also detect the human presence and adjust their behaviors.

Robot malfunction at Amazon sends 24 people to hospital

“In the past, associates would mark out the grid of cells where they would be working in order to enable the robotic traffic planner to smartly route around that region. What the vest allows the robots to do is detect the human from farther away and smartly update its travel plan to steer clear,” Amazon Robotics VP Brad Porter told Tech Crunch.

Porter also said that the bests have a ‘huge success’ with over ‘one million unique activations’ having been recorded with the system it’s deployed so far.

The electronic robot invention comes after couple of incidents that occurred between robot and warehouse workers in the past, even sending dozens of people to hospital.