Ocado unveils wireless warehouse automation system
Working with Cambridge Consultants, Ocado has created a new wireless control system that the online grocery retailer says is “transforming” its warehouse automation. The technology enables Ocado to control and co-ordinate the movements of hundreds of thousands of crates containing millions of grocery items, in real time and in parallel.
According to Cambridge Consultants: ” The technology breakthrough is enabling Ocado to control 1,000 machines, communicating with them 10 times a second, all within an area the size of an Olympic swimming pool – maximising warehouse efficiency. The innovative wireless solution is also scalable – so could potentially handle 20 times the number of movements.”
The product design and development firm added: “Existing mobile communications technologies did not offer the real-time control or scalability that Ocado needed. The Cambridge Consultants team identified that a system based on 4G telecoms technology deployed in the unlicensed 5GHz Wi-Fi band gave the best chance of achieving Ocado’s goal of co-ordinating thousands of fast-moving machines to within a fraction of a second.”
Mark Richardson, operations director at Ocado, commented: “This revolutionary wireless development work from the Ocado and Cambridge Consultants collaboration is a crucial part of the advanced, proprietary automation which will power our next-generation warehouses and those of our partners.
“We set out to create a groundbreaking platform for online retailers – the Ocado Smart Platform – to push the boundaries of efficiency, modularity and scalability. Working closely with the Cambridge Consultants team has enabled us to make our ambitious vision a reality.”
