If you’re running a large warehouse, there’s a lot more to it than moving stock in and out. You have to track that stock as efficiently and accurately as possible. Now, we’re increasingly seeing the potential here for drones to play a role, saving employees from tedious (and even dangerous) work.
Think about it. You’re working in a massive warehouse where you’re tasked with keeping track of what is on the shelves. That’s no small task, and, obviously, the bigger the warehouse, the bigger the job. Some heavy stock can be stored very high on racks, meaning you’ve got to move a ladder around in order to scan.
Unless…a drone can do that work for you.
Autonomous drones in warehouse operations
We’ve seen this before, with companies like WARE using Skydio 2 drones to autonomously take stock. It’s pretty amazing to watch and a pretty cool use-case scenario. Here’s how WARE explains what it does:
Ware deploys self-flying drones inside warehouses and distribution centers to automate their inventory tracking—increasing their accuracy, efficiency, and saving them money.
And here’s what it looks like in action. Very impressive:
Autonomous drones in warehouse a boon to efficiency
WARE isn’t the only one getting into this business. A company called Verity – a spinoff from ETH Zurich, a public research university based in Switzerland – is also in this sphere and appears to be expanding at a rapid rate. The company says its autonomous indoor drones have completed more than 300,000 flights and are being used by clients in more than 20 countries. Here’s more from the Verity website:
A zero-error warehouse is no longer a luxury—it is an urgent mandate for companies operating in today’s fast-moving, customer-focused supply chain. Powered by autonomous drone technology, the Verity system automates inventory checks in large warehouses and distribution centers, replacing the costly and labor-intensive task of inventory tracking. Working in the background with no human interaction, our system reduces the time and cost of collecting accurate inventory data—and distills that data into critical insights to drive better inventory management decisions.
Verity drones work the warehouse: Video
ETH released this video the other day, which also helps to explain the connection between ETH and Verity. And, like the WARE solution, this video shows some impressive capabilities:
DroneDJ’s take
It won’t be too long before we start seeing this everywhere: Autonomous drones taking off and doing their jobs and increasingly uploading data for processing and integration with virtually no human intervention. We’ve written before about the coming Age of Autonomy, where Skydio is poised to become one of the leading companies in the drone world.
It’s our view that Enterprise clients will have the greatest initial demand for these kinds of abilities, but undoubtedly, use-case scenarios will spread beyond that sector. In our minds, there’s no question: Automation and autonomy are the future.
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