Amazon has introduced electric-powered robots named 'Scout' to deliver packages to customers in a neighbourhood in Seattle.
Amazon is the latest entrant in the market for autonomous delivery to customers without a human driver. The wheeled delivery vehicles guide themselves along the pavement at a walking pace.
“We developed Amazon Scout at our research and development lab in Seattle, ensuring the devices can safely and efficiently navigate around pets, pedestrians and anything else in their path,” said Sean Scott, the vice president heading the project, on social media. The Scout has been introduced in Snohomish County in Seattle.
Scott described the Scout at being the size of a small cooler and said that six of them were being used to deliver packages to Amazon customers.
“Customers in Snohomish County order just as they normally would and their Amazon packages will be delivered either by one of our trusted partner carriers or by Amazon Scout,” Scott said.
Amazon said that the Scout robots would only during daylight hours Mondays through Fridays, making deliveries automatically, but accompanied by its employees.
Based on the success of this experiment, Amazon will determine if the project should be expanded.
Chinese e-commerce company JD.com uses delivery robots as does Starship Technologies, based in Estonia. The latter has tested operation in Washington, and another startup, KiwiBot, handles deliveries to US university students.
With inputs from agencies
