Ikea is increasing its fleet of warehouse inventory drones

Even in Slovenia, Ikea uses inventory drones, which have proven to be an excellent example of the use of technology with a lot of potential.

Photo: Pixabay

One of the main questions that has been swirling in the field of drones for some time is how to make the best use of the technology and what are the best use cases. The driving force behind the development of drones has become the way of using autonomous drones to inspect hard-to-reach and dangerous areas, such as oil rigs. Then there are inventory drones, which have also become a promising category in recent years.

The Ingka Group, which owns and operates hundreds of Ikea locations, representing around 90 % of its retail network, is perhaps the most prominent name in the market. In its own way, this is quite logical: the Swedish furniture giant and meatball seller operates huge warehouses stocked with large items. For humans, this represents huge areas, and the warehouses are made to reach high in height, which is a challenge for most robots.

This is precisely the advantage of the fleet of hundreds of drones that Ikea currently operates in Europe. These small inventory drones can scan the codes on the products at any time and update the inventory status in the warehouses in real time. They can reach heights that humans and even most robots cannot.

The drones that fly around Ikea's warehouses in the typical blue and yellow colors, with the Ikea logo and the well-known "Hey!", are manufactured by Verity. It was the partnership with Ikea that brought Verity investor interest. The startup company raised $32 million in seed funding last March, and an additional $11 just four months later.

"We always like to learn from others and this project is a great example of how we and an external partner came up with a solution that brings benefits to all of us", he said in a press release Peter Ac, head of logistics at Ikea.

Ikea's drone initiative came to life in 2021 in Switzerland, Verity's home country. They provided an effective solution and thus greatly facilitated the logistics of storage for the furniture giant. They now cover 16 locations, with stores in Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Verity may have the most recognizable partnership at the moment, but it's far from the only one in the inventory drone category. The main competitors are Corvus Robotics, Gather AI and Indoor Robotics. There's also Dexory, which hits the high shelves with a giant telescoping autonomous mobile robot.