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Burrito Delivered by Bot, as Long as Students Don't Trap It


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Kiwibots delivering food orders on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

The Kiwi Campus startup near the University of California, Berkeley, offers robot meal deliveries to students.

Credit: Ulysses Ortega/The New York Times

The Kiwi Campus startup near the University of California, Berkeley, offers robot meal deliveries to students, with remote "pilots" in Colombia setting and adjusting way points as the bots travel along a path.

The sidewalk-traveling bots have an onboard computer and cameras, while Kiwi couriers load the bots with food ordered to go from local restaurants; if the bots encounter problems, like students trapping them or blocking their path, human couriers deliver the food on foot, or via Segway scooter.

Kiwi Campus has made more than 60,000 robotic food deliveries in the past two years.

Said Kiwi’s Sasha Iatsenia, “It’s ultimately a social experiment to see how robots get accepted by a community.”

From The New York Times
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Abstracts Copyright © 2019 SmithBucklin, Washington, DC, USA


 

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