Communications of the ACM
The Pandemic is Bringing Us Closer to Our Robot Takeout Future
Coronavirus lockdowns have created a surge in demand for food deliveries that is increasing demand for robots to make those deliveries.
Credit: Starship
On the morning of March 30, I set out from my home in Washington, DC, to the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. In only a few hours, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Virginia Governor Ralph Northam would issue coordinated stay-at-home orders. But I was going to GMU's campus to check out a new technology seemingly tailor-made for the moment—technology that could help people get food without the risks of face-to-face interactions.
Campus was eerily quiet; most students and staff had long been sent home. But as I approached a Starbucks at the northern edge of GMU, I heard a faint buzzing and saw a six-wheeled, microwave-sized robot zip along the sidewalk, turn, and park in front of the coffee shop. The robot looked like—and essentially was—a large white cooler on wheels. It was a delivery robot from Starship, a startup that has been operating on campus since early last year.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, small sidewalk robots like this seemed to be slowly gaining traction here and at large. Generally, these bots are light and slow-moving enough that they're unlikely to hurt anyone. That has allowed companies to start using them in real-world applications, with minimal supervision, at a time when larger autonomous vehicles designed for road use still seem far from mainstream commercial use.
These days, of course, coronavirus lockdowns have created a surge in demand for food deliveries. In recent weeks, I've talked to executives from two different sidewalk robot companies, Starship and Kiwibot. Both say they're scrambling to build new robots and roll out service to new areas in the face of unprecedented interest.
From Ars Technica
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