While attempts have already been made to expedite and automate deliveries using wheeled robots or aerial drones, humans are still the most efficient way to navigate obstacles like stairs or cluttered pathways in order to get packages from a truck to a doorstep. A demo video shows a driver unloading packages onto Spot for doorstep distribution that Boston Dynamics hopes will be efficient enough to justify buying one of the $75k~ bots.<\/p>\n
Boston Dynamics says it\u2019s \u201calready in talks with major logistics companies about testing Spot for a last-mile delivery solution\u201d and its current goal is to move from these demos to a full pilot project.<\/p>\n
Spot\u2019s unique ability to clamber over uneven terrain and navigate complicated obstacles could facilitate its use as a delivery assistant. The robot is already frequently used to help comb through rubble as part of search and rescue operations, and Boston Dynamics believes those capabilities could make it well suited for navigating the \u201cunstructured environments of suburban neighborhoods\u201d where the path from the curb to a front door is rarely obstacle-free.<\/p>\n
The robot will not only help reduce physical strain on delivery drivers, it will also give them more time for other tasks such as prepping the next delivery while Spot is dropping off its current payload, potentially increasing their capacity. \u201cFor every three packages delivered via Spot, we think we can add another package to the van,\u201d says Paige Miller, Boston Dynamics\u2019 senior staff product manager for Spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While attempts have already been made to expedite and automate deliveries using wheeled robots or aerial drones, humans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,18,282,19,17,5,15927,753,82],"class_list":["post-585634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-eire","tag-gadgets","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-robot","tag-tech","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116919769887493092","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}