Leaders at Swiss athletic apparel company On say they take innovation to heart—whether designing their latest running shoes or executing a logistics strategy. A recent pilot project with autonomous inventory drone firm Verity and container shipping and logistics services giant A.P. Møller-Maersk is helping to bolster that claim.
The project combines the best of two technologies: AI (artificial intelligence)-powered autonomous drones and RFID (radio-frequency identification) capabilities. Verity has added RFID readers to its drones, extending RFID tracking beyond static portals or gates to allow real-time, item-level visibility anywhere in the warehouse. This allows RFID reading “to be mobile and agile, and reach any corner of the warehouse,” according to Verity’s head of marketing, Raphaël Morgulis.
“RFID enables automated inventory tracking beyond line of sight, pallets, and boxes—detecting, identifying, and localizing any item at any stage of the warehouse lifecycle,” Morgulis said in a statement describing the project earlier this year. “In this case, Verity has equipped its drones with RFID technology, allowing them to see beyond the line of sight to monitor and track inventory at the item level, a departure from traditional drone-based inventory monitoring.”
The partners conducted the pilot over a three-month period, tracking inventory held at a high-volume Maersk facility in California. The project illustrates the growing role of inventory management drones across warehousing and logistics: The warehouse drone market was valued at $10.26 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach more than $25 billion by 2031, according to an analysis by Verified Market Research. Key drivers include the need to increase efficiency in warehouse operations while providing better insight and control over inventory—all of which lead to better supply chain decision-making.
HIGHER TECH, BETTER VISIBILITY
Maersk has partnered with Verity on drone-based inventory management since 2023, and On has been using the technology since mid-2024. The late 2024 RFID enhancement takes those capabilities to the next level.
Traditional drone-based inventory management combines AI, sensors, and vision technology to capture barcode data and speed inventory cycle counting. Verity’s drones autonomously navigate warehouse aisles, hovering above pallets, scanning their barcode labels, and taking photographs using onboard cameras. Once the data-collection process is complete, the system transmits the updated information to the client facility’s warehouse management system (WMS).
RFID technology allows the drones to move beyond line-of-sight tracking to extend their vision inside and beyond boxes. The key lies in the difference between barcodes and RFID tags: Barcodes are optical labels that contain machine-readable information, typically displayed as parallel lines, that are scanned via light. RFID uses radio waves to exchange data between a tag attached to an object and an RFID reader. The barcodes require line-of-sight and individual scanning, but RFID readers can read multiple tags simultaneously, without direct visibility.
With the On/Maersk project, Verity’s drones are reading tags inside millions of boxes of sneakers.
“We are reading individual RFID tags, and in the case of this pilot, the tags were at the individual item level, inside the boxes,” said Verity’s chief technology officer, Markus Hehn. He went on to note that, “When items (for example, shoes) are tagged with RFID tags at the individual level, RFID-enabled drones are able to travel the aisles [and] capture individual tag reads, using onboard intelligence to slow, pivot, or rotate to ensure detailed and accurate tag reads.”
ACCURACY AND PRECISION
In the pilot, the drones scanned up to 1,000 tags/items per second, precisely identifying each item with a 99.9% success rate. Through the RFID technology, Verity can precisely localize each tag in the warehouse, allowing the tracking of items as they make their way through the facility.
And this is all done without having to change the workflow in the building, which is commonly required when warehouses switch to RFID technology, according to Hehn.
“To remain scalable, RFID tags must be inexpensive, which limits the range of their emitted signals. Consequently, an RFID reader must be close to the tag in order to read it,” he explains. “There are two approaches to ensuring inventory accuracy with RFID in a warehouse: Either bring the reader to the tag or bring the tag to the reader. Most RFID warehouses choose the latter—installing RFID-reading gates at inbound/outbound points that require redirecting the flow of goods. With our technology, we bring the reader to the goods, eliminating the need to alter the workflow.
“Additionally, gates only allow you to check on goods as they’re being moved, not to monitor their status or confirm their location when in storage.”
With RFID-enabled drones, managers can track items throughout the warehouse lifecycle—greatly enhancing supply chain visibility.
And as On’s leaders describe it, the drone project provides a vision for the future.
“On is an innovation company at heart, and we are excited to push the boundaries of what’s possible in logistics …,” On’s co-founder, Caspar Coppetti, said in the statement describing the pilot. “This exploration of cutting-edge solutions allowed us to test and evaluate new ways to enhance efficiency and transparency in our supply chain.”
As of early February, Verity’s drones had conducted more than 1,500 flights and performed more than 80 million RFID reads—covering roughly 1.25 million individual tags. With the technical hurdles scaled, Verity’s next step is to prove commercial viability of the solution and bring it to a wider audience.
“By fusing AI, autonomous data collection at scale, and RFID, we are bridging the gap between the digital and physical worlds to deliver complete visibility across supply chains,” said Verity CEO Raffaello D’Andrea in the statement.
