Hopes 'magic floor' AI system at Northampton warehouse could plug national labour shortage

• ITV News Anglia's Matthew Hudson has been to see the robotic warehouse in action.

A "magic floor" which uses artificial intelligence to autonomously move parcels is being tipped as the solution to a shortage of labour in the distribution sector.

The Versatile robotics system is being trialled at logistics experts Wincanton's distribution warehouse near Northampton.

It has increased productivity by completing 125 orders every 25 minutes - a speed five times faster than workers finding and collecting items manually.

The system moves products in tote boxes with a dynamic tiling system to know precisely where goods are, before moving the materials rapidly to where they can be packed for distribution.

Scott Merrick, robotics products director, said: "We send a message to the system asking to get the tote and the tiles will then move the tote out to the front really quickly.

"It's faster than anything we've seen before. We've got another solution on site that's really robust, really good.

"This takes it to another level in terms of the speed it can retrieve at."

The Versatile system was developed by the Tharsus Group at Blyth, Northumberland.

Wincanton already uses large autonomous mobile robots to complete orders, but they work only half as fast as the Versatile system.

Paul Durkin, chief customer and innovation officer, said: "We can't stand still. As consumers we've all got greater expectations and we need to blend automation with people.

"It's important that automation works closely with people in order to keep fulfilling those demands but to do it in an economic way as well. That's increasingly important in a difficult environment."

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