Warehouse inventory using drones

10/31/2016 at 6:34 pm | Marieke

So far, drones have mainly manifested themselves as ultramodern couriers, but counting inventory using drones will become increasingly common too. In January 2015, the French Hardis Group patented an ‘inventory drone’ called Eyesee, and logistics service provider Geodis has recently developed a warehouse inventory solution in conjunction with Delta Drone.

Geodis tested the drone solution in a warehouse close to Paris in May 2016. In the long term, the solution could be made available to its 300 warehouses worldwide, representing six million square metres. The drone is a unique prototype, designed by the two companies themselves, which is able to retrieve and process data in the Geodis warehouse management system.

It features indoor geolocation technology and functions completely autonomously during the hours when the warehouse is closed. Hardis describes its Eyesee as an autonomous and affordable solution. Eyesee can handle all current barcode formats and, when several logistics labels are placed on a pallet, the drone can identify the one that is useful for inventory control.