Welcome to Black-I Robotics
Slashing the cost of mixed case palletizing
Setting a New Standard in Warehouse Automation
Building Mixed Case Pallets Without the Labor
There are 1.45 million workers in warehouses and manufacturing plants across North America working day and night to build mixed case pallets. Mixed case pallets are the most efficient way to consolidate different products and ship them on to customers. It’s a tedious, repetitive, back-breaking job. Yet, it’s the least automated segment of the end to end global supply chain, with 95 percent of the work done manually.
Revolutionary Robot Solution
It’s not like companies within the logistics industry haven’t tried to deploy automation to cut the massive costs of mixed case palletizing. They’ve failed. The job, it seemed, was too complex. Black-I Robotics has solved the challenge based on its original work for the U. S. Department of Defense developing autonomous mobile robots to move heavy loads such as artillery shells. Three years ago we introduced our Fullscope autonomous mobile heavy lift robot solution to the commercial market and, working closely with leading transportation and consumer goods companies, have radically improved it. We’re now on Version 10, which is being validated by a number of Fortune 50 corporations.
Creating an Army of Robot Workers
Black-I’s solution is ingenious. Our engineers have integrated our AI-based proprietary and powerful Fullscope mobile arm with a general purpose autonomous mobile robot (AMR) to create what we call an army of Robot Workers. Robot Workers, deploying our innovative AI vision and path planning, move quickly to pick designated products, place them on pallets, then autonomously move the pallets to shipping docks, where they are shrink wrapped and trucked to customers. All without a human hand involved in the process. Our robot dramatically reduces per pick costs. A Black-i Fullscope Robot Worker can construct a 1-ton multi-layer pallet with 100 mixed items in approximately 18 minutes, and do so with almost perfect accuracy. Remarkably, our solution can offset up to five workers per 24 hour shift.
Humanoids versus Task-oriented Robots
The robot industry is on fire in terms of sales. Projections for robot sales full year 2025 vary between $24.4 billion and $29.8 billion. The compounded growth rate is estimated as high as 22.3 percent. Investors have noticed. In 2024, professional investors poured approximately $5 billion into robots. Some of it into general purpose Humanoids, which have enjoyed outsized hype and second-rate execution. Task specific Physical AI robots as they are called are smarter, stronger, faster and can operate much longer than Humanoids. The number one goal of smart logistics managers is cutting costs, keeping workers safe, improving time to market and growing the bottom line. Our Fullscope arm does all of that, while offering companies a new and powerful competitive advantage in the dynamic logistics marketplace.
Brand New Technology
Virtually all our technology was developed in-house. We use 2D and 3D cameras to give the robot arm a 360-degree view of workplace surroundings, enabling safe SKU-level picking and placement. The arm can lift multiple items per reach into shelving and across pallets into conventional racking. This means that normal pallet racks can be used without expensive and time-wasting infrastructure retrofits. Our custom designed hardware and grippers are critical to balancing our heavy loads (up to 130 pounds), while our patented battery cycle technology keeps the arm operating 24×7. AI vision and redundant sensors facilitate obstacle avoidance and establish a unique security perimeter that instantly halts robot movement when it locks on to a human entering the work zone.
Our robot builds a 1-ton, double-layer pallet with 100 mixed items in 18 minutes, dramatically reducing cost per pick and offsetting up to five workers per 24-hour shift. We estimate we can do the work this enormous market demands at least 20 percent cheaper than it’s done today.
Black-I’s proprietary AI-based technology gives our robot a 360-degree view of its surroundings, enabling fast, accurate and safe handling of loads weighing 130 pounds or more operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Eliminating Expensive, Disruptive Infrastructure Retrofits
Logistics managers frequently ask themselves, how can I retrofit my warehouse or manufacturing plant without affecting ongoing operations, spending a fortune and dealing with a blizzard of paperwork? Often the answer is, I can’t. Black-I gives staff a new way to think about the problem — consider deploying robots that basically operate without expensive traditional infrastructure such as fixed robots, conveyor belts and all the behind the scenes plumbing required. Fixed robots are stuck. Plant operators are stuck with them. Mobile robots with large manipulators and AI level intelligence like ours go to where the work is, enabling staff to scale automation when and where they want. Finally, mobile robots mean more favorable utilization of limited capital budgets.
Winning the Chewy Challenge
Our solution solves the mixed case palletizing conundrum, but doesn’t stop there. Another stubborn problem faced by the logistics industry is handling heavy, shape-shifting bags like pet food and kitty litter, which weigh approximately 40 pounds. The challenge motivated Chewy, Inc. the leading online retailer of animal products, to sponsor an international competition to identify the robot company that offers the most advanced robotic solution to the problem. A dozen robot companies entered the contest, which involved an immersion lasting months with Chewy’s robotics organization. Black-I was the winner. Read all about it in the News section.
📦 Smart Pick & Place
See our robot in action as it navigates individual shelves,
identifying and handling diverse SKUs with speed and precision.
🛻 On-the-Move Autonomy
Watch it seamlessly transition between zones, shelves, and workstations — with built-in human-safe navigation that enables true collaboration.