In the presence of delivery robots used by multiple startups and even the shopping giant Amazon. FedEx the global courier delivery company has announced that they are experimenting its new FedEx SameDay Bot for short range deliveries, which the company says will help in making “last mile” deliveries efficient.
The SameDay Bot is powered by battery, it has a top speed of 10 mph, and it is totally autonomous, which means it can direct itself around the pedestrians and traffic using a combination of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors which are used in self-driving cars and cameras.
The company says that it will initally use the bot internally in the company headquarters located in Memphis, Tennessee (pending approval from local government). But if these trials are successful it will expand its services to other companies and retailers which uses the same day delivery service.
The company says that its currently in talks with multiple companies such as AutoZone, Lowe’s, Pizza Hut, Target, Walgreens, and Walmart as the report confirms that 60% customers of these retailers resides within three mile radius which is a suitable distance for a robot based delivery.
FedEx is not the only company testing these robots some startups and large companies are also testing the robot based delivery technology. San Francisco municipal legislators has restricted their motion as an inconvenience.
Developed under the guidance of the engineer Dean Kamen, who previously created the Segway and stair-climbing upright wheelchair, iBot. The FedEx SameDay Bot uses multiple pairs of wheels to climb up steps and curbs.
The video commercial confirms that the bot has screens on the front and back to communicate with pedestrians. The screen in the front says “hello” while the screen on the back indicates its direction of travel and whether or not it’s about to stop.
