Retina Robotics Awarded Illinois Grant to Build First-Ever Real-Time Warehouse Digital Twin

Retina Robotics has been awarded a grant through the Illinois Innovation Voucher Program, in partnership with the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition (ISTC) and the State of Illinois, to build the first-ever real-time digital twin of warehouse operations for autonomous inventory management. The funding will support the development of a live, continuously updated virtual representation of a warehouse, powered directly by data from Retina Robotics’ Warehouse Automation Module (WAM™).

At Retina Robotics, we’re tackling the inefficiencies of manual inventory management that slow warehouses down and introduce costly errors. Our solution, WAM, is a compact, plug-and-play robotic device that mounts to any existing forklift or material handling vehicle. Using onboard computer vision and AI, WAM tracks and identifies any type of inventory at all times, with or without a label, and eliminates the need to manually scan, validate, or audit inventory ever again.

Today, most warehouse digital twins are static, capturing a facility at a single point in time and quickly becoming outdated as inventory moves. As a result, they’re primarily used for offline simulation and planning rather than operational use. Truly live digital twins, which update continuously in real-time, have seen limited development and innovation due to the difficulty of capturing accurate, persistent data without disrupting warehouse workflows. Even the largest players in the world have attempted to build a live digital twin, but without an always-on hardware pipeline inside the warehouse, most efforts stop at demos.

With WAMs deployed on existing warehouse vehicles, continuously tracking every item as it moves through the facility, Retina Robotics provides the always-on hardware-to-software pipeline needed to keep a digital twin accurate in real-time. The result is a live, 1:1 digital twin that reflects inventory movement as it happens. It gives businesses instant visibility into their inventory and operations without ever having to step foot on the warehouse floor, enabling fast, accurate decisions without manual scans, intervention, or workflow disruptions.