Across the Atlantic, robot delivery is slowly but surely democratizing. However, it is difficult to deploy them anywhere: rural areas cause distances that are too great to cover, while cities pose navigation problems for robots moving on sidewalks. For specialized companies, however, the solution is quite found: campuses.
Campuses are ideal for these robots
American universities take up a lot of space and can even be the size of a small town, without their alleys and streets being too crowded. Students are also ideal customers, eager for snacks and parcels of all kinds. It is for this reason that the startup Starship, specializing in the development of delivery robots, has deployed its devices in no less than twenty-two American campuses. The cost of delivery for students is $ 1.99.
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The firm currently has 1,200 robots with roughly the same value as a high-end laptop, notes Bloomberg. They can also run for 18 hours on a single charge. Starship is far from being the only company to be interested in universities: it is also the case of Kiwibot which signed an agreement last August with Sodexo S. Objective: to deploy 1,300 robots on fifty campuses where the service provider food manages cafes and dining rooms.
Likewise, Russian giant Yandex operates fifty delivery robots at Ohio University and plans to expand that to no less than 250 campuses.
Profitable technology that should become the norm
Because if these devices are not practical in all situations, they have a definite advantage for companies: they are very profitable because they do not require any salary. It is for this reason that the food delivery giant, DoorDash, unveiled in November an internal research and development unit which has already obtained two patents for an autonomous delivery pod. Its biggest competitor, Uber, has its own branch dedicated to robot delivery called Serve Robotics.
The technology is not yet optimal, and requires for example a human for cleaning, repairs or recharging. Nonetheless, it looks set to continue and grow outside the United States as well. In 2019, La Poste indeed tested a robot to help letter carriers, and Starship is already delivering groceries in certain European areas.
In 2022, the number of delivery robots is expected to triple across the Atlantic if the players in the sector achieve their objectives. We should therefore expect that they will become the norm in a few years: ” If we look at ten, fifteen years later, it’s an activity that represents tens of billions of dollars. », Concludes Artem Fokin, head of business development for the autonomous driving division of Yandex.