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Ground-delivery robots may be as good as drones (Patreon)

Published:
2016-06-25 19:46:34
Imported:
2026-06

Content

I’ll be showing up on WTOP radio in Washington DC next week to talk about ground-based robot delivery. The spin in DC is that airborne drones aren’t allowed because of flight restrictions in the nation’s capital, so ground based delivery provides a solid alternative.

Here’s a few notes from my segment prep. Let me know if you like getting this sort of thing:


The Washington Post reports Estonian company Starship Technologies will start providing deliveries in Washington DC by ground robot.


Starship Technologies was co-founded by Skype Cofounders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis and has offices in Tallinn and London.


The robot cars are trackable with GPS, gyroscopes, and nine cameras. Starship estimates they’ll charge about $1 a trip. DC will limit Starship to five robots out at a time. The robots can't weigh more than 50 pounds unloaded, and they aren't allowed to go faster than 10 miles per hour, though they generally run slower. Stopped robots must be cleared after malfunction within 24 hours.


The company will begin field tests and a pilot project will run from Sept. 15 through the end of December 2017. Starship hopes for a full-blown consumer launch for 2017.


The company has used the robots to deliver pizza to Starship headquarters in Talinn.


A similar ground-based robot delivery startup called Dispatch is currently testing its services at two universities in California


Warehouse robots provide similar functions for logistics inside. Two year-old Fetch Robotics of San Jose feature autonomous navigation and automatic distance following so they can trail behind a warehouse worker. Amazon has a similar setup from their acquisition of Kiva Systems.


Read more:


"It’s official: Drone delivery is coming to D.C. in September - The Washington Post"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/24/its-official-drone-delivery-is-coming-to-d-c-in-september/


"Starship has almost fully autonomous robots delivering pizza"

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/starship-almost-fully-autonomous-robots-232602854.html


"Delivery Robots (Ahti Heinla, Founder & CEO at Starship Technologies) | DLD16 - YouTube"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTE50S8J_74


"Ground delivery robots: Passing fancy or next wave? | TechCrunch"

https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/10/ground-delivery-robots-passing-fancy-or-next-wave/


Dispatch

http://dispatch.ai/


Starship Technologies

https://www.starship.xyz/

Comments

Alan Char

Thanks for posting this! It's interesting to see what you're up to outside of DTNS. The idea itself is fascinating, but I think air travel may be more predictable than ground travel, and therefore better for automation, at least initialily.

Patrick Wolfe

I may have to change my comment on the idea of newsletters (from the survey). I find this very interesting, considering you are probably more limited in terms of time than terms of the number or types of stories you present. If you have even more stories you wish to report on, then yes, please, publish a hourly/daily/weekly newsletter to cover the stuff I didn't hear about on the air! Sign me up!

Paul Macias

I was glad to have this heads up. I live in the D.C. suburbs and will be tuning in to hear your take. As the video accompanying the WaPo article shows many of the sidewalks for business areas of D.C. are pretty wide. But it will be interesting how it deals with crowded conditions.

Robert Anstett

Yes to liking things like this. Good to see other appearances you are doing but I am more interested in seeing the behind the scenes research. Always interested in finding the source of a story.

John Bekas

Yes, I'm interested in receiving newsletters with this kind of material. I understand the DC air restrictions, but it's sad that a company called Starship will be ground-based. :(