Amazon says it has deployed more than 1 million robots across its operations network since it bought Kiva Systems in 2012. In its fulfillment centers, those robots do three kinds of work: moving inventory (Hercules, Titan, Proteus), handling individual items (Sparrow, Vulcan) and sorting finished packages (Robin, Cardinal), with the Sequoia system tying storage together. The descriptions below come from Amazon’s own robot overview page, last updated in June 2026.
How the robots split the work
The easiest way to keep the names straight is to follow one order through a fulfillment center:
- Storage: Sequoia consolidates inventory into totes and brings it to workers.
- Bringing shelves to people: Hercules and Titan carry inventory pods to the workers who pick orders.
- Item handling: Vulcan and Sparrow pick and place individual products.
- Packing: packaging machines make a bag sized to the order.
- Sorting: Robin and Cardinal pick packages off conveyors and chutes and send them toward the right truck.
- To the dock: Proteus tows full carts to the loading dock.
Sequoia: the storage system
Sequoia isn’t a single robot. It combines mobile robots, gantry systems, robotic arms and an ergonomic workstation. Mobile robots bring totes either into containerized storage or straight to an employee, whose station is set at between mid-thigh and mid-chest height. Amazon says Sequoia lets it identify and store inventory up to 75% faster.
Hercules and Titan: robots that carry the shelves
- Hercules is a drive unit that slides under a pod of items and brings it to a worker. It reads a grid of markers on the floor to know where it is and uses a forward 3D camera to tell people, pods and other robots apart. Central software decides where it goes; Hercules decides how to move.
- Titan does the same job for heavy goods. Amazon says it lifts twice as much as Hercules, so it handles bulky items like small appliances and pallets of food.
Both work only in fenced robot floors. Amazon says those areas are restricted to authorized robotics specialists.
Vulcan and Sparrow: robots that handle single items
- Vulcan is Amazon’s first robot with a sense of touch. It picks and stows items in the top and bottom rows of storage pods, the spots that make workers climb a ladder or crouch. Force sensing lets it feel contact and stop before damaging something. Amazon says it can handle about three-quarters of the item types stored in its fulfillment centers, at speeds comparable to its employees, and calls a person in when it can’t move an item.
- Sparrow is a robotic arm that uses computer vision to find the right product in a container and move it into the tote for an order.
For a closer look at how Vulcan and Proteus divide their work, see our Vulcan vs Proteus comparison.
Robin and Cardinal: robots that sort packages
- Robin was the first robotic arm Amazon Robotics deployed. It takes boxed orders off conveyor belts and places them on drive units heading toward the outbound dock, and pulls out damaged packages.
- Cardinal picks one package out of a pile coming down a chute, lifts it with suction, reads the label and places it into the right cart. It handles packages up to 50 lb.
Proteus: the robot that works among people
Proteus is Amazon’s first fully autonomous mobile robot. Unlike Hercules and Titan, it isn’t confined to fenced areas: it uses sensors to see and avoid objects, so it can drive where employees work. Today it moves the carts Cardinal fills from the outbound area to the loading dock.
Amazon announced a next-generation Proteus in June 2026 as part of a €10 billion European investment. It is meant to work anywhere on a site, not just near the docks, and employees will direct it with plain text prompts. Amazon says the robot then works out the priority, route and timing itself. The overview page says it is being piloted in Amazon’s labs, with deployment in the months ahead.
The software above the robots
Amazon also describes two AI layers on top of the hardware: DeepFleet, a foundation model meant to coordinate the movement of the whole robot fleet more efficiently, and Project Eluna, an agentic AI tool to help operators plan safer, more efficient workflows. Its newest fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana, opened in 2024, uses eight robotic systems together.
Can you buy Amazon’s robots?
Not as products. Amazon Robotics builds and tests these robots at its Massachusetts headquarters for Amazon’s own operations, and Amazon doesn’t list them for sale. Businesses that want similar automation buy from outside vendors. For a humanoid that has worked in logistics pilots, including with Amazon, see our Agility Robotics Digit guide, and for mobile robots sold to other warehouses, see Locus Origin, Vector and Array.