Online retailer Amazon unveiled its new robotics and AI technologies “Blue Jay” and “Project Eluna” at its innovation event “Delivering the Future” in San Francisco on October 22. The Seattle, USA-based company announced this in a press release. According to the company, the two solutions are meant to reduce repetitive tasks for Amazon employees, improve their safety, and increase productivity—while accelerating delivery.
“Our latest innovations are excellent examples of how we use AI and robotics to create an even better experience for our employees and customers,” says Tye Brady, Chief Technology Officer of Amazon Robotics. “The goal is to make technology the most practical and capable tool—so that workflows become safer, smarter, and more satisfying.”
Blue Jay and Project Eluna, according to Amazon, build on the company’s latest solutions—such as “Vulcan” and “DeepFleet”—and extend the retailer’s approach to physical AI. Blue Jay is an extra pair of hands intended to assist employees with tasks that require grabbing and lifting.
Coordinated
robotic arms
It is a next-generation robotic system that coordinates multiple robotic arms to carry out many tasks simultaneously, and consolidates three separate robot stations into a single workspace that can retrieve, sort and consolidate goods at a single location. Visually, Blue Jay, according to Amazon, operates like a juggler who never drops a ball—only here the “balls” are tens of thousands of items moving at high speed. At the same time it is like a conductor directing an orchestra, with every movement coordinated.
In a little over a year, the development and production followed Blue Jay's concept—a process that for earlier Amazon systems like “Robin,” “Cardinal” or “Sparrow” took three or more years. The reason: years of trial and error were reduced to months of development thanks to advances in AI. Amazon engineers were able, with the help of digital twins, to create dozens of prototypes for Blue Jay. This is an advanced form of simulation that allows the
company to experiment virtually while using real physics to accelerate development.
Faster development through AI
In combination with the AI, the data and the learned experiences of the current Amazon robot fleet, Blue Jay could be developed faster and more intelligently, according to the e-commerce provider. Blue Jay is already being tested in an Amazon facility in South Carolina. There it can already retrieve, store and consolidate about 75 percent of all types of items stored at the company's logistics sites. Over time it is planned to serve as a core technology that will expand Amazon's Same-Day locations to more than 4,000 American communities. For customers, it will enable faster deliveries at lower costs. For employees, it will bring improved tools and even safer work.
Operations managers continuously monitor dozens of displays while reacting to technical failures, reallocating resources and making quick decisions. Project Eluna acts, according to Amazon, like an additional team colleague and helps reduce this cognitive load.
The solution is, according to the provider, an agile AI system – developed to act with a certain degree of autonomy, to think through complex operational situations and to give managers actionable recommendations.
System initially self-optimizes
It draws historical and real-time data from a site to anticipate bottlenecks and keep operations running. Project Eluna, per Amazon, will be piloted this holiday season in a logistics center in Tennessee (USA) to support managers and will initially work on sorting optimization. Managers can ask questions such as: “Where should we shift workers to avoid a bottleneck?” and receive clear, data-driven recommendations. The goal: fewer ad hoc decisions, greater foresight.
New career-planning opportunities
Amazon says it is also investing in training so that employees feel confident handling AI-assisted tools—through training programs like Career Choice and training in mechatronics and robotics, together with new AI education offerings that help employees understand how these systems fit into daily work and open up new opportunities for
