Yesterday, at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in London, Viroteq has won the virtual stacking challenge organised by Vanderlande and Fraunhofer Institute with their AI-solution that optimizes stacking and packing processes with unknown mixed-sized packages.  

The challenge was set out by Vanderlande, a logistic solution provider for the Airports, Parcel and Warehousing segment, to raise awareness for the topic of parcel stacking and loading solutions in a sector that struggles with high levels of labour shortages. Especially for the logistic stacking and loading processes, where manual work is physically heavy, the industry is eager for solutions that can automate these processes. With the increase of parcel varieties and process flexibility requirements in the sector, the technical complexity of automated stacking and packing solutions is very high. 

With the application of 39 contestants from around the world, Viroteq won both the hard (cash) and soft (joint innovation) price for all three set out stacking and packing cases, simulating different logistic parcel stacking processes. By applying their StackrBrain AI technology that runs in the core of their RobotStackr solutions, Viroteq optimized the volumetric fill rate and was able to create stacks with high stability, so that packages in real-world situations are not damaged during transport.  

The win of the stacking challenge come in a week in which Viroteq also officially launched its RobotStackr product. The StackrBrain technology applied in the challenge also forms the basis of the RobotStackr, which enables users to efficiently apply the complex AI models within flexible stacking and packaging processes. 

Stijn de Looijer, Technology Owner Robotic Automation at Vanderlande: “Viroteq is able to build stable stacks and achieve an impressively high fill rate and is therefore announced as the winner of this challenge. We are looking forward to further investigate the technological and market readiness of this solution and introduce it into our logistic operation”. 

Evert van Galen, CEO and co-founder of Viroteq: “We are very proud to have won this international challenge, which is a great reward for all the hard work of our team. Since the start of Viroteq, when we noticed this huge but complex problem around logistic mixed stacking and packing tasks, we have worked hard to develop our newly launched RobotStackr AI solution to significantly improve the automation performance in these processes. Winning this challenge proves that we belong to the best performing solutions in the world and we are looking forward to further optimize global stacking processes together with industrial innovation leaders such as VanderLande”.