Amazon has announced the development of Vulcan, a novel warehouse automaton endowed with haptic capabilities enabling it to discern the tactile properties of certain objects.

The bifurcated Vulcan, engineered for logistical maneuvers within Amazon's warehousing infrastructure, integrates haptic feedback mechanisms to ascertain object proximity and engagement, with one appendage executing compartment optimisation and the other, incorporating advanced optical and pneumatic apparatus, performing item retrieval.

According to Amazon, Vulcan underwent rigorous training encompassing haptic feedback, such as force and touch data, enabling it to select approximately 75% of Amazon's inventory, with inherent capabilities for autonomous self-improvement. This robotic system is currently operational in facilities located in Spokane, Washington, and Hamburg, Germany, having thus far processed a cumulative total of half a million orders.

Vulcan stands as merely the most recent supplement to Amazon's burgeoning cadre of logistical automatons, a deployment numbering in the high hundred thousands meticulously orchestrated to expedite order fulfillment throughout its extensive network of international storage facilities; concurrently, notwithstanding detractors' contentions that Amazon's substantial outlays in robotics represent a strategic manoeuvre to supplant human labour, the corporation unequivocally repudiates this assertion, maintaining that machinations such as Vulcan serve primarily to augment the safety protocols within its warehouse environments.