Always wondered how it would be to order your pizza online and not get it delivered by a human being but by a robot? This may sound odd, but it is actually happening already in London, England. Starship Technologies, launched in 2014 by two former co-founders of Skype, believes that their robots will revolutionise local delivery by the use of robots. (Starship Technologies, 2016)
Starship’s goal is to solve the ‘last-mile’ problem. The last-mile problem lays in the short distance delivery. Bigger delivery companies operating with trucks or delivery vans are effective for long distance distribution of goods, however they are inefficient when dealing with short distances. Besides that, short distance or on-demand delivery can also be costly (up to £12) in central London. That’s how they came up with the idea of delivery robots (see image).
The robots look simple: They have 6 wheels, lots of camera’s, censors and storage room to put goods in that the customer wants to get delivered. With bunch of cameras and censors, the robots are intended to operate autonomously using similar technology which powers self-driving cars. The robots are using pavements like pedestrians, travelling at slow speeds and with zero emissions. The company provides their services for a one dollar fee. The company already collaborates with big take away services such as Just Eat and Pronto, as well as Hermes, a leading consumer delivery specialist. (Vincent, 2016)
The idea of robot delivery sounds quit interesting to me, however is robot delivery compatible with drone delivery? Amazon for example came up with Amazon Prime Air, a future delivery system designed to safely get packages to customers in 30 minutes using small unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones. (Amazon, 2016)
I can’t picture myself walking on a pavement surrounded by delivery robots. Wouldn’t it be more safe to deliver goods in the air where they are not disturbing other human beings? What do you think, is robot delivery our future way of delivering goods?
Sources:
Amazon, 2016. Amazon Prime Air. [Online] Available at: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=8037720011 [Accessed 27 09 2016].
Starship Technologies, 2016. About us. [Online] Available at: https://www.starship.xyz/about-us/ [Accessed 27 09 2016].
Vincent, J., 2016. These six-wheeled delivery robots are starting trials in Europe. [Online] Available at: http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/6/12105010/delivery-robot-london-just-eat-starship-technologies [Accessed 27 9 2016].
Dear Annemieke, my first thought when I read your blog was: can the robots go up and down stairs? I live on the fourth floor, and when I get food delivered, the delivery guy comes to my door (luckily, he can use an elevator in my appartment, but that is not the case everywhere). While I do think that robots can take over part of the delivery process, it would be really unhandy to have too many robots on the streets (in my opinion). I am not sure either if it would be safer in the air – right now, there are still legal, financial and practical questions regarding drones that have to be answered (Kennedy, 2015), such as air safety, regulations and the problem of crowded skies.
I am very curious to see whether this development will evolve, and if so, how!
Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/media/5-issues-drones-will-have-to-navigate/
Dear Annemieke,
First of all, interesting blogpost!
Before commenting on your article i did some research myself. I found that Starship Technologies still has to prove via trails that their delivery robot will actually work on scale. I think Starship Technology is going to face a lot of problems and that’s the reason why i think that their delivery robot won’t be the future way of delivering goods. I will explain why:
First, I totally agree with the point you made about driving robots disturbing human beings. As robots simply can’t react the same as human beings, i think that there will be irritated people because of the robots driving around town. Especially in crowded city’s (like Amsterdam or London) the robots will be in the way of pedestrians. As these robots will irritate human beings, they will not be liked by many people.
Second, The first thing i thought about during reading your blogpost was: These robots will definitely get stolen. The robots look expensive and this will be a motive for thieves to steal them. Selling the parts of the robots individually will be hard to trace. I really think theft is the biggest problem for the delivery robots of Starship Technologies.
This are only two reasons, but i think there are way more (like: better alternatives, safe road crossing, etc) to back up my opinion; the delivery robots of Starship Technology will not be the future way of delivering goods.
Sources:
– https://www.starship.xyz/
– http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/6/12105010/delivery-robot-london-just-eat-starship-technologies
In theory this sounds like a solution/invention worth trying as they reduce among others costs and waiting time. But as you mentioned in practice I don’t think this would work. If this project unexpectedly still becomes somewhat of a success and they introduce it in Rotterdam, I don’t see myself (yet) maneuvering around these autonomous driving delivery vehicles just to get somewhere. But it would be funny to experience. Furthermore, these objects might become an interesting object for thieves and others with bad intentions. On the other hand, air delivery also has its technical, legal, and safety hurdles. So which one is a better solution? I do not know but I’m curious to know what citizens of London think.
But looking at the bigger picture, autonomous moving objects and other objects like robots will become more and more part of our society and daily live. Whether it will be for trading purposes, healthcare, autonomous driving, delivery, production, or whatever it will be, we better get used to seeing autonomous moving objects around us.