https://www.wsj.com/business/logistics/the-holy-grail-of-automation-now-a-robot-can-unload-a-truck-ad527ba8
Technology breakthroughs are allowing DHL and other companies to automate the laborious, injury-prone work of loading and unloading
*Loading and unloading a truck is backbreaking, mind-numbing work that retailers and parcel carriers have tried to solve for years. *
Automating this process has long been the holy grail of warehouse logistics. When loaded, packages must be fitted together to fill the available space and be sorted by weight—with the heaviest items on the bottom—so they don’t topple or break. Unloading them is challenging, too, because the unloader must move in and out of a trailer, ferrying packages of different sizes and weights.
Ambi Robotics is developing robots to load and unload trucks
Another company, Boston Dynamics, has designed a robot called Stretch, named for its flexible arm that can reach the top corners of a trailer. With a vacuum gripper covered in suction cups, it can lift boxes weighing up to 50 pounds.