Aaron Parness will share how Amazon is giving its robot arms a sense of touch to perform tasks in high-clutter and high-contact environments.
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Amazon’s warehouse robots include Sparrow, which sorts individual items for employees to package; Cardinal, which lifts packages and puts them in carts; and Robin, which lifts and sorts packages before they’re brought to the outbound dock. | Source: Amazon
Amazon.com Inc. currently operates more than 750,000 robots that sort, lift, and carry packages across its facilities. Now the world’s largest robot operator, the company has come a long way since it acquired Kiva Systems in 2012.
At the 2025 Robotics Summit & Expo, Amazon will give attendees an inside look at its robotic evolution. Aaron Parness, the director of applied science in robotics and artificial intelligence at Amazon Robotics, will give a keynote presentation on Thursday, May 1, from 9:00 to 9:45 a.m. ET at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
During the keynote, Parness and Steve Crowe, the executive editor of robotics at WTWH Media, will discuss how Amazon is giving its robot arms a sense of touch to perform tasks in high-clutter and high-contact environments. They will talk about how incorporating force and torque sensing in robot control loops and motion plans enables next-generation workcells to handle the enormous diversity of items that Amazon processes in its fulfillment network.
With AI and machine learning for both vision and touch, the company‘s robots can now stow and pick items directly from inventory storage. The fireside chat will also explore advances in the underlying science, as well as early results from robots deployed to fulfillment centers in the U.S. and Europe.
Parness brings robotics, AI expertise to Amazon
Parness received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2009, advised by Mark Cutkosky. He earned a BS in mechanical engineering and a BS in creative writing from MIT in 2004. Parness is currently director of applied science in robotics and AI at Amazon Robotics.
His teams in Seattle and Berlin build robotic work cells to increase the speed of delivery and reduce the cost of order fulfillment for Amazon customers. Specializing in high-contact and high-clutter applications, he has led advances in giving robots a sense of touch.
Parness’ work in AI and machine learning enables the company‘s robots not only to understand their environment, but also to intelligently reason over that environment and predict the outcomes of different actions that they could take.
From 2010 to 2019, Parness worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he founded and led the Robotic Rapid Prototyping Laboratory, specializing in grippers and wall climbing robots. He has received Popular Science’s ‘Best of What’s New’ award in 2012, the National Academy of Engineering’s Gilbreth Lecture Award in 2020, and multiple best paper awards. His Google Scholar listing has more than 3,500 citations, with an h-index of 27.
More about the Robotics Summit
This year’s Robotics Summit & Expo, produced by The Robot Report, will bring together over 5,000 attendees focused on building robots for various commercial industries. Attendees will gain insights into the latest enabling technologies, engineering best practices, emerging trends, and more.
The show will have more than 50 educational sessions in tracks on AI, design and development, enabling technologies, healthcare, and logistics. The Engineering Theater on the show floor will also feature presentations by industry experts.
Joining Parness as keynote speakers are Aaron Saunders, chief technology officer of Boston Dynamics; James Kuffner, CTO at Symbotic; Daniela Rus, director of MIT CSAIL; and Aadeel Akhtar, founder and CEO of Psyonic.
The expo hall will have 200+ exhibitors showcasing the latest enabling technologies, products, and services that can help robotics engineers throughout their development journeys.
The Robotics Summit also offers numerous networking opportunities, a Career Fair, a robotics development challenge, the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards Gala, and much more.
Co-located with the event is DeviceTalks Boston, the premier event for medical technology professionals, currently in its tenth year. Both events attract engineering and business professionals from a broad range of healthcare and medical technology backgrounds.
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