ABB Robots and the Automated Cold Chain

From 1890s river ice harvests to NewCold's 40 m high automated freezer in Melbourne, and how ABB FlexPicker, PoWa and Flexley robots feed the cold chain.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/26/20261 min read

Before freezers, cold storage started on a frozen river. In the 1890s, crews with horses and saws cut ice blocks in winter and packed them in sawdust in ice houses, so butchers and dairies could keep food cool into summer.

Black and white photo of horses pulling sleds of ice blocks across a frozen river

Cutting ice on a river with horses and sleds, 1890s. Photo: John Boyd / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Mechanical refrigeration replaced the ice, but frozen warehouses stayed hard places to work. People in thick suits drove forklifts through aisles at minus 20 degrees or colder and had to take regular breaks to warm up. Many freezer stores were dim, cramped rooms stacked with crates.

Narrow dim storage aisle with wooden shelves stacked with boxes on both sides

A frozen food warehouse in Antarctica, 2007. Photo: Eli Duke / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The newest freezers barely need anyone inside. In September, a report on NewCold's automated store at Truganina, in Melbourne's west, described the pies and chips for the AFL grand final sitting 40 metres high in the dark at minus 23 degrees. Cranes, shuttles and conveyors move the pallets, and NewCold's two Melbourne freezers hold 407,000 pallet positions.

Automated shuttle carrying a wooden pallet along a rail between tall steel racks

A pallet shuttle running through an automated storage and retrieval system. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Most of the robot work happens just before the freezer door, where food gets packed and stacked. ABB IRB 360 FlexPicker delta robots place food items into trays or cases on fast lines before they are sealed.

Delta robots above a stainless steel conveyor placing food into trays

ABB IRB 360 FlexPicker robots placing food on a fast packing line. Photo: ABB

ABB's PoWa cobots, which cover payloads from 7 to 30 kg, can carry a vacuum gripper to lift cases onto pallets. The ABB Flexley Mover P604 can then lift a load and drive it across the warehouse floor on its own, finding its way with Visual SLAM.

White ABB cobot arm with a flat vacuum gripper under blue light

An ABB PoWa cobot fitted with a vacuum gripper. Photo: ABB

I expect more cold chains to run with the lights off, with people in a warm control room and robots doing the lifting at minus 23. Fridges at home are starting to talk and keep track of what's inside, so maybe the last step, from delivery van to kitchen freezer, gets automated too.

Low white ABB mobile robot on a warehouse floor between stacks of wooden crates

An ABB Flexley Mover P604 autonomous mobile robot among wooden crates. Photo: ABB

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