Amazon is known for its efforts to make autonomous deliveries a thing. We all have heard about the Prime Air service that will be making use of drones for making deliveries. However, the company is not only focused on air supremacy when it comes to autonomous deliveries. It has also kicked off trials for ground robots, named Scout, that are to roll down the sidewalks of a Washington neighborhood while employing the use of autonomous navigation for reaching their destination.
The idea might not be as exciting as the notion of using drones for making deliveries; the ground robots sure are a viable option. In fact, in the short-term, they are more realistic as well. Pepsi also introduced a set of self-driving vendors at California university earlier this month. We have also seen the Starship Technologies launch its trails at Virginia’s George Mason University.
Amazon’s Scout is the company’s all-electric solution for making deliveries autonomously. It resembles Starship’s robots. The Scout features six wheels and is about the size of a cooler. It can travel at a walking pace and is capable of following the delivery route autonomously. According to Amazon, the Scout is able to navigate around pets, pedestrians, and other obstacles without breaking a sweat.
Amazon will be employing six of the Scout robots for delivering packages to its customers in Snohomish County, Washington from Monday to Friday during the daylight times. They are eventually meant to do this on their own but for the time being the Amazon’s Scout will be accompanied by the company’s employee while it goes about its business.
You can check out the Amazon’s Scout in action below. Do you think autonomous deliveries are possible? What about the impact it will have on jobs? In any case, do let us know what you think of the Scout and this whole idea of autonomous deliveries.
