Imagine you’re a truck driver finally arriving at your destination after hours of driving. Once you drop off your cargo, you know you have hours more to go before the end of your workday. In between all this driving, you spend a significant amount of time simply waiting for your trailer to be unloaded and loaded again. While there are robots that can unload pallets or boxes individually, Slip Robotics takes a different approach to the problem.

Instead of creating a robotic arm to pick items individually, the company developed SlipBots called automated loading robots (ALR). It’s a large, omnidirectional mobile robot that can carry up to eight full pallets and a total of 6 tons. Once the pallets are on the ALR, it autonomously drives into a trailer for transport to the next destination.

When it gets there, it drives off the truck and into the warehouse. Once the truck has been unloaded, the ALRs waiting in the wings can drive onto the trailer. This reduces driver wait time from 1.5 hours down to just five minutes, Slip Robotics said. The company said it can load 20 pallets per minute without driving a forklift into a trailer.

Besides reducing wait times for divers, Slip’s robots can load eight times as many trailers with the same number of operators. It can also reduce material handling damage by 40% by reducing touches and impacts.

Finally, the company also improves worker safety. Twenty-five percent of industrial accidents involve a loading dock, and ALRs make it so operators never need to enter trailers to unload, load, or secure.

Explore the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards 2024.