Autonomous Inventory for
Warehousing & Distribution
Distribution centers and fulfillment hubs face relentless pressure to maintain accurate inventory without shutting down operations. Autonomous drone inventory is transforming how leading operators manage cycle counts, physical inventories, and real-time pallet visibility.
The Hidden Cost of Manual
Inventory Management
Inventory inaccuracy in warehouses and distribution centers is not a minor operational inconvenience — it is a systemic cost driver that impacts labor, throughput, customer satisfaction, and financial accuracy simultaneously. The scale of the problem is frequently underestimated because the costs are distributed across multiple budget lines and cost centers, making the true total invisible to most operations teams.
The average distribution center conducts a full physical inventory two to four times per year. Each PI consumes dozens or hundreds of labor hours, requires material handling equipment to be diverted from productive picking and put-away work, and still delivers results that are out of date by the time the data reaches a planning system. Between PIs, inventory accuracy degrades daily — creating a growing gap between what the WMS says and what is actually on the shelf.
Labor Overhead
Cycle counting and PI execution consume 2-4 FTEs of dedicated labor, plus MHE pulled from productive operations. Fully-loaded cost: $100,000-$200,000+ per year in mid-size facilities.
Inventory Inaccuracy
The average distribution center operates at 85-92% inventory accuracy. Every point of inaccuracy drives failed picks, mis-shipments, customer service costs, and safety stock inflation.
Operational Disruption
Physical inventory requires work stoppages, aisles blocked for counting, and equipment diverted from order fulfillment — directly reducing throughput on the highest-demand days.
How Corvus One Transforms
Warehouse Inventory
Corvus One deploys fully autonomous drones that fly through warehouse aisles at walking speed — scanning every pallet position, reading barcodes, measuring slot occupancy, and uploading discrepancies directly to your WMS — without any human operator, without WiFi, and without modifying your racking or facility. The drone takes off from its Corvus Cradle charging station, completes its assigned aisles, and returns to charge. Every night. Every shift. With zero labor input after initial deployment.
Within 3 months of go-live, facilities consistently achieve 98-99%+ inventory accuracy — up from typical pre-automation baselines of 83-92%. Count frequency increases from 2-4 times per year to 26+ times per year. Labor dedicated to counting is reallocated to higher-value inbound and outbound operations. Material handling equipment is freed from counting runs and returned to productive picking.
20× Faster. 99%+ Accuracy. Zero Labor.
The world's first fully autonomous warehouse inventory drone. No pilot, no WiFi, no infrastructure changes. Corvus One scans 200-400 pallet positions per 20-minute flight and delivers a complete discrepancy report synced to your WMS before the next shift begins.
-20°F Rated. No Infrastructure Changes.
Cold storage and frozen warehouses present the most extreme inventory management challenge. Worker exposure limits, injury risk, and PPE costs make manual counting expensive and infrequent. Corvus One for Cold Chain operates autonomously at -20°F — eliminating human entry for routine counting entirely.
Real-Time Inventory Intelligence
The Corvus AIMS (Autonomous Inventory Management System) platform gives operations teams full visibility into inventory accuracy, location coverage, flight statistics, space utilization, and discrepancy trends — all in a single dashboard accessible from any device.
Side-by-side pre vs. post-Corvus accuracy. Audit progress and remaining locations at a glance.
Quantity mismatch, wrong slot, missing item, unexpected occupancy — each categorized with AI-suggested WMS correction.
Identify slots below 20% fill. Consolidate low-volume pallets and reclaim storage capacity without a manual audit.
Set recurring aisle-by-aisle missions on a calendar. Add, subtract, or rearrange based on daily operational priorities.
Corvus One at Work
Warehouse drone inventory management at scale
Cold chain autonomous inventory — the frozen warehouse problem solved
Calculate Your Savings
Use our free interactive calculator to model your annual savings from Corvus One based on your facility size, temperature environment, FTE count, and current inventory accuracy. Most facilities see payback in 10-22 months.
Actel Robotics deploys and supports Corvus One across Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma — home to some of the largest distribution center networks in the South and Gulf Coast region.