The robot arms train every night.
About half a dozen of them, flexing in silence.
And in the morning, Nomagics engineers turn up for work to check how the machines did.
This is a never-ending effort, says co-founder and chief of strategy Tristan dOrgeval.
If therobotarms performed as intended, the updated algorithms get uploaded to the Warsaw-headquartered companys live system.
Nomagic currently has 70 employees and has raised $39 million to date.
Right now, dozens of the firms robot arms are toiling away in warehouses scattered around Europe.
They pick and move an astounding variety of items from t-shirts to bags of screws.
They lift them out of storage bins; they sort them; they drop them into boxes for shipping.
The industry is nonetheless adamant that there is significant demand for automation.
Sometimes theres no wrapping at all.
That choice will depend on the items size, shape, and material.
How will it respond when the pair of shorts falls out unexpectedly?
These sort of hiccups, which are not the robots fault, can still cause challenges, says dOrgeval.
A successful pick is probably three seconds, he adds.
Why get a robot to do what humans can do so well?
One vision for the future might be robots assisting better-paid human employees in warehouses, he adds.
Dogar is also currently working on projects partnering with Amazon and a logistics firm.
He stresses that robots must be able to coexist safely with human beings in warehouse environments, however.
DOrgeval says Nomagics robots have never been involved in a safety incident.
They operate within cages that prevent anyone from approaching the machine.
Plus, robots, generally, are still limited in terms of function, argues Dogar.
Weve got a bit of bee, a bit of fly, bit of ant, bit of rat.
Thecompany studies neural activity in, for example, insect brainswhile those insects navigate through experimental environments.
Such a bioinspired approach may be promising, says Dogar.
Among the benefits Opteran says its bioinspired algorithms offer is a high level of robustness.
Harsh lighting or unexpected lighting changes inside the warehouse wont trouble these machines, he insists.
They respond to it dynamically.
Specifically, localisation and mapping.
It will offer collision avoidance algorithms next year.
People dont lose their jobs, things just evolve.
Research suggests that warehouseworkers opinions about automation are mixed.
