US Giant Robot Manufacturing Company Boston Dynamics has developed a Modern Delivery Robot Dog named ‘Spot’ which it plans to deploy for smart courier delivery service.
Boston Dynamics envisions its four-legged ‘Spot’ robot helping human delivery workers, noting the company is already ‘in talks with major logistics companies.’
The robot developer says it’s “already in talks with major logistics companies” about testing the company’s four-legged Spot robot to carry packages for home delivery.
Boston Dynamics published a video demonstrating how Spot could help. In the clip, a human delivery driver pulls up to a home in a van and opens the back door. Spot jumps out with a bin-like conveyor attached to its back.
The human worker places the packages on the robot, which delivers them to the home via the attached conveyor, gently letting them slide off its back onto the doorsteps. Spot then ventures to the next house, repeating the process before hopping back on the delivery van.
In a tease, the video ends with two Spot robots working alongside a human delivery driver, one of the bots rolling on four wheels on the street. “We’ve already done a lot of work on the payload prototype to make sure the delivery is soft,” Boston Dynamics’ Spot product manager Paige Miller said in the blog post. “We even delivered a carton of eggs to make sure we were demonstrating the necessary level of package care.”
The company posted the demo as it’s “actively seeking logistics partners to help work out the details of how last-mile automation scales,” Boston Dynamics says, noting that Spot has mainly been used in industrial settings. “By training Spot to assist with these tasks, Boston Dynamics leaders hope drivers will be able to deliver more packages more quickly, while also reducing the physical strain on drivers.”
The main challenge is making Spot smart enough to navigate “unstructured environments of suburban neighborhoods,” Boston Dynamics says, which could include dog walkers, children on bikes, and obstructions such as trash bins. It’s perhaps why the company says “initially, deliveries may be made using driver control” with the goal of using the routing data for future automation.
