Last year, we talked here about a Electric robot created by an Estonian startup for small deliveries in big cities. Developed to walk along city sidewalks at an average speed of 4 km/h, twice the speed of a person walking, it has already gone through nine months of tests in small towns in 12 European countries and, starting in July, enters a new phase, participating in real deliveries in the UK, Germany and Switzerland.
In this last phase of testing, dozens of these electric robots will be used to deliver to companies such as the British Just Eat (food delivery), the retailer Metro, from Germany, and Hermes in 5 cities, including London, Düsseldorf and Bern. . The expectation is that the last tests will last between 6 and 8 months, and in 2017, the robot will definitely enter the market.
Video 1 – Watch an interview with one of the founders on the Techcrunch website
Source: Techcrunch
The idea of the new robot is to automate the small deliveries that happen on a daily basis, such as meals, medicine and small packages. The user will make the purchase over the internet and will be able to follow the delivery through an application, which will also serve as a “key” to open the robot. On the other hand, the shopkeeper will only need to load the robot with up to 18kg of products and send it to the customer within a 5km radius.
In addition to facilitating these small daily deliveries, the new robot will also facilitate product changes. The customer will be able to buy a shoe or a shirt, try it on at home and, if he needs to change it, he will just have to put the product back in the robot, which will return the goods practically free of charge.
But what about the security of deliveries? Well, this is a problem for every big city, but the team at Starship Technologies, the robot's creator, guarantees they are not worried. The robot is equipped with six cameras and is always connected to the internet, being monitored by a human operator in control centers. In addition, it also comes equipped with microphones and speakers, to allow interaction with humans and, in unusual situations, ask a child not to sit on it.
References:
<https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/06/self-driving-delivery-bots-europe/>
Alexandre Lobo
https://ilos.com.brGraduated in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and in Social Communication from Faculdades Integradas Hélio Alonso (FACHA). Expertise in several projects with emphasis on market analysis for companies such as Unilever, Intertank, Invepar, Aqces, Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank.
