Stow: Robotic Packing of Items into Fabric Pods

Nicolas Hudson; Josh Hooks; Rahul Warrier; Curt Salisbury; Ross Hartley; Kislay Kumar; Bhavana Chandrashekhar; Paul Birkmeyer; Bosch Tang; Matt Frost; Shantanu Thakar; Tony Piaskowy; Petter Nilsson; Josh Petersen; Neel Doshi; Alan Slatter; Ankit Bhatia; Cassie Meeker; Yuechuan Xue; Dylan Cox; Alex Kyriazis; Bai Lou; Nadeem Hasan; Asif Rana; Nikhil Chacko; Ruinian Xu; Siamak Faal; Esi Seraj; Mudit Agrawal; Kevin Jamieson; Alessio Bisagni; Valerie Samzun; Christine Fuller; Alex Keklak; Alex Frenkel; Lillian Ratliff; Aaron Parness

arXiv · 2505.04572

Stow: Robotic Packing of Items into Fabric Pods

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Abstract

This paper presents a compliant manipulation system capable of placing items onto densely packed shelves. The wide diversity of items and strict business requirements for high producing rates and low defect generation have prohibited warehouse robotics from performing this task. Our innovations in hardware, perception, decision-making, motion planning, and control have enabled this system to perform over 500,000 stows in a large e-commerce fulfillment center. The system achieves human levels of packing density and speed while prioritizing work on overhead shelves to enhance the safety of humans working alongside the robots.

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Nicolas Hudson, Josh Hooks, Rahul Warrier, Curt Salisbury, Ross Hartley, Kislay Kumar, Bhavana Chandrashekhar, Paul Birkmeyer, Bosch Tang, Matt Frost, Shantanu Thakar, Tony Piaskowy, Petter Nilsson, Josh Petersen, Neel Doshi, Alan Slatter, Ankit Bhatia, Cassie Meeker, Yuechuan Xue, Dylan Cox, Alex Kyriazis, Bai Lou, Nadeem Hasan, Asif Rana, Nikhil Chacko, Ruinian Xu, Siamak Faal, Esi Seraj, Mudit Agrawal, Kevin Jamieson, Alessio Bisagni, Valerie Samzun, Christine Fuller, Alex Keklak, Alex Frenkel, Lillian Ratliff, Aaron Parness. 2025-05-07. Stow: Robotic Packing of Items into Fabric Pods. https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.04572

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