MiR launches MiR250 Hook for autonomous cart towing

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The MiR250 Hook can autonomously tow carts that weigh up to 1100 lb. | Image credit: MiR

Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) today launched the improved MiR Hook for automatically collecting and towing carts through dynamic and constricted industrial spaces. The new MiR250 Hook is built around the MiR250, MiR’s fastest and most compact AMR.

This solution is capable of transporting various sizes of loaded carts weighing up to 500 kg (1100 lbs). It increases the payload that it can tow, and it also features an improved cart gripper that can interface with almost any existing cart on your floor. The MiR250 Hook can engage with carts that have bottom cross beams between 80 mm (3.15″) and 350 mm (13.78″) above the ground.

“At workplaces worldwide, humans move thousands of carts and transport cages manually between departments, a highly repetitive and time-consuming task,” said Søren E. Nielsen, president of MiR. “With the highly precise and powerful MiR250 Hook, towing carts and transport cages through dynamic and potentially constricted environments is now easier, more manageable and quite economical. There is no need to modify the layout of the facility or purchase new carts, since the MiR250 Hook can autonomously locate and attach to almost any type of cart via QR codes or AprilTags and deliver it to its destination without human involvement.”

The MiR250 Hook can autonomously latch to most standard carts. | Image credit: MiR

MiR250 Hook specs

Tow capacity 500 kg / 1100 lbs
Max speed 2 m/sec / 4.4 mph
Battery run time with maximum load: 11 hours
Weight 188 kg / 414 lbs

The MiR250 can immediately replace the long-haul motions anywhere in your facility where you currently deploy hand carts to queue and/or move cargo. This includes material handling workflow such as: milk runs, lineside replenishment, work in process movement and finishing goods movement. A MiR250 Hook frees up your human workers to do more value added work, and saves them from the strenuous work of pushing carts around the facility all day.

“These workers can then spend their time assembling products rather than collecting material and parts,” Nielsen said. “The company also saves space in the production area when carts with components are delivered just in time from stock.”

2 deployment options

There are two deployment options available. You can purchase a new, completely integrated MiR250 Hook, or you can retro-fit any existing MiR250 AMR with the MiR250 Hook top module. This allows existing customers to redeploy their MiR robots as needed. QR-codes placed on individual carts enables the MiR250 Hook solution to identify those individual carts. This allows the MiR250 Hook to be deployed into existing workflows for your factory.

The MiR fleet management software and user interface enables your staff to easily control the robots and where the material should move to next within the facility.

MiR increased its sales by 55% in Q1 2021 over the same period for both 2020 and 2019. MiR’s sales totaled $14 million, and a large number of those sales were the MiR250, the company’s newest compact AMR. MiR grew 1% with sales of $45 million in 2020.

MiR also said it is starting to see a positive shipment trend towards its higher-payload AMRs – the MiR500 and MiR1000. MiR said its Q1 orders show that industries such as automotive, consumer packaged goods, electronics and pharmaceuticals continue to automate internal transport with AMRs.

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared on sister publication Mobile Robot Guide.