Robots that can pick any item in a warehouse

How far are robots from picking the full range of items people handle in a warehouse?

Amazon says its Vulcan robot can pick and stow about 75% of the item types it stores, and Ocado reports that robotic arms at five picking stations in Erith have doubled their pick and pack speed. These are company figures. No source reviewed gives a live pick success rate, an error rate or a count of deployed picking units. Controlled tests and a 2017 competition run show reliable picking in narrow conditions, and Amazon says a human partner takes over picks that its Vulcan robot cannot make.

AI illustration · Illustrative scene, not a photograph of the specific device or experiment.
WHERE WE AREPilots

Close. Early pilots are running in the real world.

Picking systems are running at a small number of named sites. Amazon names Spokane and Hamburg as the fulfilment centres where Vulcan is focused, and Ocado reports robotic arms at five picking stations in Erith. The 75% coverage figure is Amazon's own estimate of item types, and no error or success rate has been published for live operation. The sources do not show full-range picking, so the stage is pilot rather than scaling.

The tech tree

Everything recorded on Vrulum that this future needs, oldest foundations at the top and the goal at the bottom. Lines show what each step requires.

What it takes: Robots that can pick any item in a warehouse Unlocked Being researched Locked
  1. 2017Robotic fruit and vegetable harvestingPilot and early commercial Unlocked.
  1. 2014Soft robotic grippersResearch and prototypesRequires: Robotic fruit and vegetable harvesting. Being researched.
  2. 2019Warehouse picking robotsPilot and early commercial Unlocked.
  1. 2017Winning a timed robotics competitionDone Unlocked.
  2. 2019Picking novel objects in controlled bin-clearing testsDone Unlocked.
  3. 2020Robotic arms at grocery picking stationsIn progress Being researched.
  4. 2024Picking from a general model that takes spoken or written instructionsIn progress Being researched.
  5. 2025Stowing items into storage pods at scaleDone Unlocked.
  6. 2025Picking and stowing about 75% of stored item types, by Amazon's estimateIn progress Being researched.
  7. Date not recordedPicking the remaining item types, including soft, porous and irregular itemsNot started Locked.
  8. Date not recordedPublished error and success rates from live warehousesNot started Locked.
  1. GoalRobots that can pick any item in a warehouseGoalRequires: Warehouse picking robots, Soft robotic grippers, Picking novel objects in controlled bin-clearing tests, Winning a timed robotics competition, Stowing items into storage pods at scale, Picking and stowing about 75% of stored item types, by Amazon's estimate, Robotic arms at grocery picking stations, Picking from a general model that takes spoken or written instructions, Picking the remaining item types, including soft, porous and irregular items, Published error and success rates from live warehouses. Locked.

The road so far

3 of 8 steps done, 3 in progress.

  1. Done · 16 Jan 2019Picking novel objects in controlled bin-clearing tests

    The Dex-Net 4.0 policy combined a parallel-jaw gripper and a suction gripper. It was trained on 5 million synthetic depth images, grasps and rewards. On one physical robot setup, it cleared bins of up to 25 novel objects with reliability above 95% and more than 300 mean picks per hour. These are results for a specific test setup, not warehouse error rates. [4]

  2. Done · Sept 2017Winning a timed robotics competition

    The Cartman team reports that its entry won the 2017 Amazon Robotics Challenge. It stowed 14 of 16 items, picked all 9 items in 27 minutes and scored 272 points. This is one timed run as reported by the authors, so it does not measure performance in a live warehouse. [6]

  3. Done · May 2025Stowing items into storage pods at scale

    Amazon's stow system has performed over 500,000 stows in a large e-commerce fulfilment centre, according to its authors. Stowing places items into storage, which is related to picking but is a different task. The abstract gives no success rate, defect rate or throughput figure. [3]

  4. In progress · May 2025Picking and stowing about 75% of stored item types, by Amazon's estimate

    Amazon says Vulcan, which uses force-feedback sensors and a camera, can pick and stow approximately 75% of the various types of items it stores. Amazon gives no error rate for this figure. Amazon says Vulcan focuses on the top rows of inventory pods at its Spokane and Hamburg fulfilment centres. [1]

  5. In progress · Nov 2020Robotic arms at grocery picking stations

    Ocado says it has doubled the pick and pack speeds of its robotic arms at the five pick stations at its Erith, UK customer fulfilment centre. The company gives no absolute rates and no picking accuracy figures. [7][8]

  6. In progress · 11 Mar 2024Picking from a general model that takes spoken or written instructions

    Covariant announced its RFM-1 model in March 2024, and says it has deployed robots at warehouses with success. Press coverage reported a live demonstration in which the robot picked up named objects, but no accuracy or success figures. [9]

  7. Not startedPicking the remaining item types, including soft, porous and irregular items

    Amazon says that when Vulcan cannot move a specific item, it can ask a human partner to take over. It does not describe the remaining item types. Suction cannot seal on porous items such as clothing, and parallel-jaw grippers may not reach both sides of some tools and toys. [1][5]

  8. Not startedPublished error and success rates from live warehouses

    No source reviewed gives a pick success rate, error rate or deployed unit count for a live warehouse. Amazon's Sparrow announcement gives no accuracy figures, unit counts, facility names or rollout timeline. [2][1]

Why it matters

Picking is the step where a robot must grip one product from a bin or shelf, often one it has not handled before. A robot that can pick most product types could take over repetitive reach-and-grab work from warehouse staff. The gap between lab results and live coverage also shows how much variety in shape, weight and softness current systems still struggle with.

What stands in the way

  • Coverage figures are company estimates of item types. No source reviewed gives a measured pick success rate or error rate for live operation.
  • Suction cannot seal on porous items such as clothing, and parallel-jaw grippers may not reach both sides of some tools and toys, so one gripper type does not cover every object.
  • Amazon says Vulcan asks a human partner to take over when it cannot move an item, and does not claim full automation of those picks.
  • The strongest published results come from controlled bin-clearing tests and a timed competition, not from a live catalogue of products.
  • Covariant's RFM-1 announcement came with one live demonstration, and the coverage reviewed gives no accuracy or success figures for it.

Published forecasts

What others have predicted. These are their estimates, not ours.

WhoForecastTimeframeMade
Amazon RoboticsPlans to deploy Vulcan systems over the next couple of years. No year is given. [1]Not givenMay 2025
Peter Chen (CEO, Covariant)Expects RFM-1 to work with a majority of the hardware that Covariant's software already runs on. The article presents this as an expectation, not a demonstrated result. [9]Not given11 Mar 2024

Signals to watch

  • Amazon or Ocado publishing pick success rates or error rates for named sites and item types.
  • Vulcan being deployed at sites beyond Spokane and Hamburg.
  • A share of the remaining item types, such as soft or porous goods, being picked without a human handover.
  • An independent benchmark on unseen products in warehouse conditions that reports success rates.
  • Ocado publishing absolute pick rates or accuracy figures for its Erith picking stations.

Sources

  1. company announcement
    Introducing Vulcan: Amazon's first robot with a sense of touch
    Amazon (About Amazon), May 2025.
  2. company announcement
    Amazon introduces Sparrow, a state-of-the-art robot that handles millions of diverse products
    Amazon (About Amazon), Nov 2022.
  3. preprint
    Stow: Robotic Packing of Items into Fabric Pods
    Nicolas Hudson, Josh Hooks, Rahul Warrier. arXiv, 7 May 2025.
  4. peer reviewed paper
    Learning Ambidextrous Robot Grasping Policies
    Jeffrey Mahler, Matthew Matl, Vishal Satish et al.. Science Robotics, 16 Jan 2019.
  5. university press release
    'Ambidextrous' robots can learn to pick up anything
    UC Berkeley News, 16 Jan 2019.
  6. preprint
    Cartman: The low-cost Cartesian Manipulator that won the Amazon Robotics Challenge
    D. Morrison, J. Leitner. arXiv, 19 Sept 2017.
  7. company announcement
    Ocado acquires Kindred and Haddington
    Ocado Group, 2 Nov 2020.
  8. news
    Ocado acquires pair of firms to speed up robotic picking tech
    Sam Silverstein. Grocery Dive, 3 Nov 2020.
  9. news
    Covariant is building ChatGPT for robots
    Brian Heater. TechCrunch, 11 Mar 2024.

Last reviewed 21 Oct 2026.