Boston Dynamics Stretch

Boston Dynamics' warehouse unloading robot, using suction to pull boxes out of containers automatically.

Stretch is the first robot Boston Dynamics built specifically for warehouses, released in 2021, meant to handle the heavy, repetitive work of unloading shipping containers and trucks. Its structure is a four-wheel omnidirectional mobile base topped with a custom 7-DoF robot arm ending in a multi-suction-cup smart gripper, with a sensing mast on the base handling box recognition. It can pull boxes out of a container and place them on a conveyor, with the company stating it can move up to about 800 boxes an hour, each up to about 23 kg (50 lbs), on roughly 8 hours of battery life. It illustrates that in a well-defined use case, a specialized non-humanoid form often reaches real deployment faster than a humanoid one.

ExampleInside a logistics warehouse, Stretch drives into a shipping container, suction-lifts cartons one by one, and places them onto an extendable conveyor to unload the container.

Related

Boston Dynamics · Palletizing / Depalletizing · Vacuum Suction Cup · Mobile Manipulator · Tote Handling · Real-world Deployment

Sources

Boston Dynamics' Stretch robot handles truck unloading & palletizing (The Robot Report)
Stretch - ROBOTS: Your Guide to the World of Robotics

As of

2026-09