Robot-to-Drone Food Deliveries Launch in Dallas

While still not entirely common, rolling robots have been delivering goods to local customers for some time, and drones have been transporting packages overhead. Now, Serve Robotics and Wing Aviation are set to combine these two delivery methods.

Wing, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has been transporting small packages by air since at least 2018, with earlier development under Alphabet’s Project X.

The company’s “highly automated” battery-powered drones have delivered a variety of items, including medicine, library books, hot coffee, and fresh cookies, to hundreds of thousands of customers in Australia, the US, Finland, and Ireland.

Serve Robotics and Wing Join Forces to Expand Delivery Reach in Dallas

Serve Robotics, backed by Uber, hasn’t been operating its delivery robots on US sidewalks as long, but the company has completed tens of thousands of deliveries for partners like Uber Eats and 7-Eleven. Now, Serve Robotics and Wing are joining forces to expand the reach of these rolling delivery robots in Dallas, TX.

Combining Serve’s Robots and Wing’s Drones for Seamless Delivery

In the pilot project, Serve’s robots will collect food orders from restaurants and transport them to an Autoloader within a few blocks. From there, a Wing drone will take over, flying the items up to 6 miles to customers using its hybrid multi-rotor/fixed-wing design.

“We’re excited to partner with Wing to provide a multi-modal delivery service, expanding from handling deliveries within 2 miles to offering 30-minute autonomous delivery citywide,” said Serve CEO and co-founder, Dr. Ali Kashani.

Wing CEO, Adam Woodworth, added, “This partnership allows us to reach more merchants in congested areas while helping Serve expand its delivery range.”

To conclude, the partnership claims that the robot-to-drone delivery model eliminates the need for businesses to invest in extra infrastructure for long-range deliveries. It also suggests that this approach could reduce costs for both service operators and customers. The duration of the pilot has not yet been disclosed.

Read the origonal article on: New Atlas

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