Ford Motor Co., Ltd., a major American automobile manufacturer, announced that it will jointly develop a home delivery technology that combines an autonomous vehicle and a bipedal walking robot “Digit” that carries luggage to the entrance in partnership with robot development company Agility Robotics. did.
An image movie of “Digit” getting on a self-driving delivery person and carrying luggage to the front of the house has been released.
In a research project jointly undertaken by Ford and Agility Robotics, we will use the robot “Digit” developed by Agility Robotics, which has the ability to walk like humans and can move within the range where we humans can walk on a daily basis.
It can carry up to 40 pounds (about 18 kg) of luggage.
Considering that one cardboard case containing six 2L PET bottles weighs about 12kg, it can be considered that most things can be carried unless it is a heavy load.
Image quote: Ford (https://media.ford.com/)
If you encounter an obstacle that you cannot handle, wirelessly communicate with the self-driving car and ask for help.
Then, the car searches the data stored in the cloud environment and instructs the robot how to deal with it.
Powerful intercommunication between robots and self-driving cars
One of the “weaknesses of robots” is that they do not know their position information when they start the robot, but the self-driving car is equipped with various powerful sensors and a computer with complicated decision-making ability.
Digit started sharing data with self-driving cars before it started, and when it wakes up, it knows where it is.
Image quote: Ford (https://media.ford.com/)
Ford plans to begin testing delivery technology that combines self-driving cars with Digit in early 2020.
Agility Robotics plans to sell Digit separately. The price will be announced around 2019 and will be shipped from the first quarter of 2020.
Issues surrounding unmanned home delivery
Other companies are also conducting various demonstration experiments on unmanned home delivery, but the safety of self-driving cars is still being debated from various fields, and it seems that there are still high barriers to full commercialization.
In order to realize the tag between robots and self-driving cars, it is necessary to promote the establishment of self-driving technology.
I hope Ford and Agility Robotics will solve these challenges and make them happen.