Scanning the news a few days ago, I spotted an article showing a picture of the Amazon Scout autonomous delivery robot.
As always, in this day and age, I just read the headline and moved on to the next headline. But today, I went back to that article and looked closer.
Hey….this is interesting stuff for budding engineers and scientists (or old retired engineers). 🙂
I went to the source: Amazon and found this short, 1000 foot level, introduction to the Scout and how Amazon is implementing it.
Really quickly, Amazon developed the Scout robot in their research lab in Seattle and on Jan 23, 2019 they started field trials in Snohomish County (Washington). The Scout will deliver a customer’s order by autonomously navigating, via sidewalk, to the customers house. Until this technology is proven, an Amazon employee will get exercise hanging out with Scout…..just in case.
Check out this video:
How does it know when to open the lid? How does the Scout know that the person coming out of the house is the person who ordered the item? I mean it could be a robber, or the postal person, or the plumber. How fast is it “walking”? How does it handle other pedestrians? Dogs? What if I walked up to it right after it stops? Do I get a prize? How long does the battery last?So many questions, so little time. 🙂
Summary
There are more companies developing land-based autonomous delivery robots, I will spend some time investigating and writing out this cool technology here.
Geek on!
TechyMike: Technology Made Easy 