ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,299,633, issued on May 13, was assigned to Symbotic LLC (Wilmington, Mass.).
"Storage and retrieval system" was invented by Kirill K. Pankratov (Acton, Mass.), Juergen D. Conrad (York, Pa.), Robert Hsiung (Cambridge, Mass.) and Larry M. Sweet (Atlanta).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A product order fulfillment system includes multiple decks arrayed at different levels and defining multilevel decks, at least one autonomous transport vehicle on each of the decks, and configured for holding and transporting a pickface on each deck, at least one lift, traversing and connecting more than one level of the decks, and arranged for lifting and low...