Chinese robotics company LiBiao has announced the release of their specialised parcel-sorting robots onto the European market with its "Mini Yellow" range of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).
LiBiao have an active flock of around 10,000 AMRs active in Asia, the US and Australia.
The line has been specifically designed as a cost-effective and highly-efficient alternative to the high capital expenditure sortation devices that have traditionally been used as part of global busy parcel and e-commerce companies.
They are actively seeking distribution partners to help them expand their markets in places such as the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
Initially, two CE-certified models will be offered to Europe: the 5kg tilt-tray robot and a 30kg cross-belt model. The robots are far more compact than other AMR's, with 350 models being able to cover an area of 1,300 square-miles supposedly at a throughput of 20,000 items per hour.
LiBiao also provides the control software for the robots, which they claim operates the robots in a smooth and efficient manner. The Chinese roboteers also claim the software should be compatible with all modern European warehouse management systems.
Due to their size, the Mini Yellows are quick and easy to set up and require minimal maintenance. The design requires no fixed infrastructure, therefore the modular system is scalable and more robots can be added as desired and the technology is fully portable, meaning technology can be switched and allocated between sites if necessary.
LiBiao has tried to differentiate from their contemporaries by allowing the bots to operate within "cold store environments" - being able to function at maximum capacity in temperatures as low as -30 degrees centigrade - which they hope will appeal to the more varied geographic markets present in Europe.
So far 10,000 LiBiao robots are active across China, New Zealand, Australia, the USA and South-East Asia and the technology has been deployed at a number of "blue-chip" client facilities worldwide, including Walmart in the US, Uniqlo in Japan and China Post in China.
The company estimate that roughly 2 billion parcels are handled by their models per year.
LiBiao Robot’s founder and chief executive, Xia Huiling, comments: “Demand for more efficient and smarter warehouse management is strong in Europe, where online shopping has been growing at a tremendous pace and driving up the number of parcels handled, so we believe that the market will benefit from our advanced mobile robot technology.
“The hardware, software and management system for the ‘Mini Yellow’ sorting system has been refined to the point where our clients usually recover the cost of their investment within one and a half to two years. And, such are the high levels of customer satisfaction with ‘Mini Yellow’ technology, that some 70 per cent of the businesses that have introduced the system so far have become repeat customers.”
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