Autonomous Robots Begin Testing For New Delivery Service

An anonymous reader writes: "In the future, your food or package could be delivered by a coordinated fleet of self-driving vehicles," writes CBS Marketwatch, reporting on an "autonomous delivery startup" called Dispatch that's already begun pilot programs on two college campuses in California. A small droid-like vehicle "self-navigates the sidewalks at a pedestrian pace and uses cameras and LiDAR, a technology that measures distance using pulses of light, to avoid obstacles," according to site, noting that each robot in the fleet retains its data "and gets smarter with each trip." The company has already received $2 million in seed capital, and "What we're doing is we're using modern AI techniques to help the robot understand the world around it and react accordingly," one of the founders explains. "Once you imagine this it's hard to really imagine a future without it."

Comments

Not likely

[fyngyrz]

It will be hilarious watching idiots trying to break into a secure internal compartment in order to make off with a plate of noodles, or a $19.95 payment for same on the return trip to the vehicle.

Do you really think no one would consider security?

Please.

Re:Not likely

[fabioalcor]

Well, looks like they're really not considering security.
Not only the stuff inside the bot are valuable to thieves, the own bot can be as well, since it can be dismantled for the parts (i.e. batteries).
Never underestimate robbers.

Re:Not likely

[ShanghaiBill]

if delivery is to ordinary people, ease of accessing goods delivered will triumph over security.

That is true for human-delivered goods as well. UPS and FedEx just toss packages on my front porch. USPS leaves packages in my unlocked mailbox. Yet I have never had a package stolen. How will these robots be any less secure than the current system?

Re:Not likely

[Ol Olsoc]

It will be hilarious watching idiots trying to break into a secure internal compartment in order to make off with a plate of noodles, or a $19.95 payment for same on the return trip to the vehicle.

Do you really think no one would consider security?

Please.

A ton of youtube videos tells me that messing with these small droid like vehicles will become a new sport.

In a world where people are happy to be tied to a tree and have their frieinds shoot paintballs at them, or think launching a bottle rocket from their backside is the shitz, this will happen.

And that's just the jokers. The paranoid will probably take a second amendment solution, cuz the vehicle is "probably there to spy" on them.

Slashdotters will probably steal them for a parts source for that 3-D printer they are making.

Re:Not likely

[fyngyrz]

You could just take the whole machine too.

...which is busily reporting its position and direction of movement.

Seriously, It's a non-starter. This isn't the 1940's. We're not talking about Robby the robot. The very technologies that make this possible -- cameras, GPS, compasses, RF communications, secure recordings, encryption, power locks -- all serve to impede criminal activity on multiple fronts at once.

Start planning your landing pad in your backyard.

[BlueCoder]

I'm not too sure of sidewalk delivery but octocopters will be a thing. They are resilient to motor failures even while carrying a lot of weight.

What occurs to me now that it's likely the first drone delivery will be from close by trucks that can not only deliver the package but do recovery of packages and drone rescue should problems occur. Probably launching from the roof of the truck. It's also an ideal way of delivering first class mail.

I wonder about how we will deal with rain. Self retracting roof for the landing pad?

What about placement? On the ground or in the air? Maybe a dumbwaiter type thing to the roof? Or put the landing pad on the roof and then retrieve everything by a personal drone?

One thing that would be good is that eventually delivery can be done at night when your home. Or by any other programmable schedule.

Here's the drone service I want:

[EmperorOfCanada]

I want to sit in a park, at work, at home, or wherever. I want to order something like a burger, a donair (look it up) or a coffee. I then want to step outside and have it arrive a very short while later. Once I can do this, then I can't see not having this service all the time.

I could see this operating at many levels. I am biking, it is a hot day, get fluids delivered. All the way to, I am camping, in pretty much the middle of nowhere and get a missing item delivered, or just some icecream.

This would ideally also extend to some sort of courier service. My kid forgets their homework; for a very reasonable fee, it gets delivered.

If the delivery can be something larger like an entire order of groceries, then all the better. But packages under 1kg would still make my life a whole lot better.

"navigates the sidewalks at a pedestrian pace"

[Nutria]

But there's a reason that we domesticated horses, built carriages, trains, bicycles, automobiles and trucks: we want stuff faster than walking speed.

Re: A radical solution

[DaMattster]

I kind of hope political leadership never catches up and that these autonomous vehicles fail because I run my own hauling business now. I'm a one man show. I left an IT job in Corporate America to get my CDL and to begin a new career. Now I do time sensitive, less-than-truckload work and the money and freedom is wonderful. But, it's gonna suck getting replaced by a robot.

Re:Great Idea

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

So what, the robots would need to... couple... to exchange the package?

Look mom! The robots are having sex again!

Re:A radical solution

[K. S. Kyosuke]

A great idea but it won't deliver your pizza. That is, not unless you'll have a tube stop in your basement.

Re:A radical solution

[ShanghaiBill]

Yep and it doesn't require batteries or fancy schmancy AI based navigation tricks

Exactly. Whey use a $20 battery and zero-marginal cost software, when you can simply use a pneumatic system that requires billions of dollars of subterranean infrastructure that doesn't exist.

Re:A radical solution

[westlake]

What is needed, however, is the implementation of the Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies, or ET3.
. The main obstacle is the littleness of the current political and technical leadership, which is stuck firmly in the past centuries.

The first pneumatic tube delivery systems went into service in the 1860s --- but parcel delivery is essentially a "last mile" problem and that is where things start to get expensive. ET3 is irrelevant in this context.