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Amazon says<\/a> that it has developed a new warehouse robot, Vulcan, that can \u201cfeel\u201d some of the items it touches. <\/p>\n The two-armed Vulcan, which can maneuver goods inside the storage compartments Amazon has in its warehouses, uses\u00a0force sensors to help it know when it makes contact with an object. One arm rearranges items in a compartment, while the second arm \u2014 which is equipped with a camera and suction cup \u2014 grabs items.<\/p>\n Amazon says that Vulcan was trained on physical data including force and touch feedback to pick around 75% of Amazon\u2019s stock, and that it\u2019s capable of self-improving over time. The robot has been deployed in Spokane, Washington, and Hamburg, Germany,\u00a0where it has processed half a million orders to date. <\/p>\n Vulcan is only the latest addition to Amazon\u2019s fleet of warehouse robots. It uses hundreds of thousands to fulfill customer orders across its global storage facilities. While critics allege that Amazon\u2019s robotics investments are an effort to replace human workers, Amazon asserts that this isn\u2019t the case, arguing robots like Vulcan simply make its warehouses safer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n