Amazon has released several six-wheeled autonomous robots in Snohomish County, Washington, as part of its initial testing before a nationwide release.
The robots are called Amazon Scout, and they were developed to make deliveries faster, easier, and more efficient for Amazon. Each Scout has six wheels and a hamper where it carries its deliveries. It is powered by a rechargeable electric battery and moves at walking speed.
Six of the robots have been released in a single neighborhood in Snohomish Country and are currently only available to Amazon Prime customers ordering same-day, one-day, or two-day deliveries. The testing is also limited at the moment to daylight hours during weekdays, from Mondays to Fridays, for minimal sidewalk traffic. Right now, Scout will be accompanied by a human chaperone for every delivery to make sure the Scout can “safely and efficiently navigate around pets, pedestrians, and anything else in their path.”
There are also some caveats to this though. For one, robots are high-risk of catching on fire. As put by Wired.com, these autonomous robots are “like self-driving cars, only they have way more nonsense to worry about (…) A delivery robot has to dodge humans streaming out of storefronts and obstacles like buskers. On top of that, they have to then briefly navigate roads when they cross streets. It’s an incredible challenge in these early days of advanced robots that have begun escaping factories and labs to roam the real world.”
Regardless, if Amazon manages to pull this off, it’s the ultimate way to make deliveries faster and more efficient than they’ve ever been.
