Many companies that use delivery robots navigate autonomously on sidewalks, industrial parks, and university campuses. Recently the Yandex Self-Driving Group and Grubhub announced a multi-annual agreement to provide quick and cost-effective robot delivery to university campuses. Also, Heineken launched its robotic Beer delivery robot with autonomous-follow technology that faithfully follows its owner everywhere.
Now, LG Electronics has launched a delivery robot that can serve both indoor and outdoor for the first time at the 18th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots in Korea. Initially, LG Electronics did an experimental venture on commercialized indoor delivery robots. Later on, they ran a trial on outdoor delivery robots. Both were successful. It led to the concept of an integrated delivery robot for both indoor and outdoor. The specialty of this 4-wheel delivery robot is its wheels automatically alter to any terrain, indoors and outdoors.
By the end of 2021, the integrated delivery robot’s trial run will commence after appropriate validation. Once out in the market, it will be a fantastic transformation in logistics through simplifying jobs performed during delivery. The executive director of LG Electronics Future Technology Center “Kim Byung-Hoon” said that this robot is a futuristic move in expectation of a boom in customer demand for non-face-to-face services to make life safer and convenient.
In the meantime, at the start of last year, LG Electronics established the ‘LG Boston Robotics Lab’ in Boston, U.S.A. Here, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is developing robot technology with physical intelligence under the guidance of Professor Sangbae Kim. The robot behaves like a human and can quickly respond to changes. Since 2012, robotics expert Professor Jin has been leading the MIT Biomimetic Robotics Laboratory. He has developed the ‘Cheetah” series of quadrupedal walking robots.
Interestingly, at least seven delivery robots are on trial. Nuro, Starship Technologies drives on open roads. It carries fresh food in heated or chilled compartments. Scout from Amazon moves on sidewalks and opens up at the delivery point. The others are Eliport, AutoX, Serve Robot by Postmates, Robot Mart, and Starship Technologies.
As per Forbes’s observation, people have been forced out of their comfort zone and made to get accustomed to new technologies and conveniences. The demand for autonomous delivery robots has been catapulting, especially since the pandemic, and will continue to do so in the post-pandemic world too.
