Amazon sends delivery robots to Washington

Amazon is releasing a self-propelled delivery robot: the Amazon Scout is a small vehicle of about knee-height and it will soon be rolling around in a Washington neighbourhood, making home deliveries to Prime members.

Six delivery robots at work

After PepsiCo, Amazon is also introducing a delivery robot. Six self-propelled blue trolleys will soon be rolling around some of the areas in the West coast state of Washington (near Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle). There they will be delivering parcels to Amazon Prime members. For now, the robots will be doing their rounds during daytime between Monday and Friday, as they will still be accompanied by an Amazon employee for the time being, for safety’s sake.
 

The devices are of Amazon’s own design. They are about the size of a small cooler and they make their way along the pavement at walking pace. “We’ve been hard at work developing a new, fully-electric delivery system – Amazon Scout – designed to safely get packages to customers using autonomous delivery devices,” announces the e-commerce giant in a blog.

Swerves around pets and pedestrians

The Scout follows its programmed delivery route autonomously. It was developed in the Seattle research and development lab, where it was also tested to navigate safely and efficiently around pets, pedestrians and other obstacles.
 

To have a delivery robot arrive at their door, Prime customers in Snohomish County (just North of Seattle) order like they normally would. Their order will then either be delivered by a flesh-and-blood courier or by Amazon Scout, depending on the order’s size and whether it fits into the robot’s route.
 

Recently, PepsiCo also began sending out delivery robots in the US, very reminiscent of Amazon’s. Pepsico’s robots were created to deliver healthy snacks and meals to university students on campus.