Warehouse automation has been one of the e-commerce giant Amazon’s recipes for success. Now the company has taken the technology to a new level with the presentation of the first completely autonomous storage robot Proteus. It was shown for the first time this week at Amazon’s annual Re: Mars conference in Las Vegas.

Proteus resembles a robotic vacuum cleaner in appearance but is larger and more capable. It is designed to move carts around Amazon’s warehouses and can do this side by side with people. Until now, robots have had to be separated from surfaces where humans work.

Security, detection and navigation features have been developed internally on Amazon. But as Techcrunch notes, the company has acquired a number of robot companies in the last decade. Proteus is similar to what the company Canvas, which has been acquired since 2019, has developed.

In addition to Proteus, Amazon also showed off Cardinal, a robotic arm designed to handle packages that are stacked on top of each other.