Warehouse Automation: The Mobile Robot Fleet Keeps Expanding
From fixed conveyors to fleets
Large distribution operations have moved from fixed conveyor lines to fleets of mobile robots that can be re-routed when the layout or the product mix changes. The largest publicly reported deployments run into the hundreds of thousands of units, a scale that has made fleet software, not the robot itself, the decisive technology.
| Layer | Function | What buyers should ask |
|---|---|---|
| Robot | Move a shelf, tote or pallet | Battery, payload, safety certification |
| Fleet manager | Traffic, allocation, charging | API access, failure handling |
| Site system | Task creation, inventory link | Integration effort and standards |
What determines success
- Throughput per hour under realistic congestion, not per robot in isolation.
- Charging strategy: opportunity charging versus battery swap.
- Behaviour when the network or the fleet manager is unavailable.
- Spare parts and battery replacement economics over five years.
Ask for a congestion test on your own layout. Fleet throughput at scale rarely equals the per-robot figure multiplied by the number of robots.