FedEx Abandons Its Last-Mile Delivery Robot Program 32
The courier company FedEx is abandoning a project to develop last-mile delivery robots. In 2019, FedEx partnered with New Hampshire-based DEKA Research and Development Corp, founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen, to develop a wheeled robot called Roxo for last-mile deliveries. From a report: But FedEx decided to end the project in early October, according to a report in Robotics 24/7. FedEx employees were told of the decision via an email from the company's chief transformation officer, Sriram Krishnasamy, who explained a new corporate strategy called "DRIVE." "Although robotics and automation are key pillars of our innovation strategy, Roxo did not meet necessary near-term value requirements for DRIVE. Although we are ending the research and development efforts, Roxo served a valuable purpose: to rapidly advance our understanding and use of robotic technology," Krishnasamy wrote. Roxo is a 62-inch-tall (1,575-mm) package bot; it weighs 450 lbs (204 kg) and has a cargo capacity of up to 100 lbs (45 kg). It was designed to navigate around sidewalks and roadsides and between pedestrians and parked cars to deliver its cargo to a customer's door. It combines a 360-degree lidar sensor with 360-degree long-range cameras above its rounded shell. There are 180-degree stereo cameras and a 360-degree radar sensor around the base, and a display that can deliver messages is set into the front of the bot.
It will get cheaper, and then it will happen (Score:3)
Right now it still costs too much to deploy these things, so you aren't really saving anything. Flying drones solve the problem of delivering small things very quickly, and they are applicable to medical uses where prices are already high, but what problem does a self-driving cooler solve?
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> what problem does a self-driving cooler solve?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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sweeping.
why not work on cleaning the place up.
robotically of course
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I think price is a factor, however I think an other issue they will need to solve is the people problem. We are in general very distrustful of technology and the what happens when it breaks down question. While real humans break down as well, often at a much higher rate than a robot can. But the fact that robots do things that are not quite human like, causes an uncanny valley type of response to its actions. My car can drive itself, most of the time it does a good job, however I may need to take over,
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... My car can drive itself, most of the time it does a good job, however I may need to take over, not because the car was doing something dangerous, but because it was acting in a way that would send the wrong message to other drivers.
So it was your car that cut across three lanes of rush-hour traffic to take the highway exit this morning while sticking its arm and middle finger out the window?! /s
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It can take an unprotected left during high traffic. However what I find, is it wants to creep out for better visibility, often while it sees an other car already, hence scarring the other driver, causing them to take evasive action.
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"We are in general very distrustful of technology and the what happens when it breaks down question."
You couldn't tell that from the smartphones, Internet of Tat, automobiles, in-home entertainment systems, streaming devices, etc.
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So many slashdot guys think tech is magic.
Turn off your projector, son. It is time for bed.
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but what problem does a self-driving cooler solve?
Don't believe the PR. They were never [dailycal.org] self-driving.
Not even the FedEx ones.
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If all they need is help pathing, that can be done in software... for lots more money.
But that, too, will get cheaper.
Re: It will get cheaper, and then it will happen (Score:2)
The email: "Dear employees and human driver slaves, you guys are so cheap, it's awesome! You make us so much money and cost so little in pay, that it's hard to replace you with robots! Good job! Your CEO from his megamansion, FedEx CEO."
Could still be useful in sorting warehouses (Score:2)
Seems like teh real world is too complex at the moment for roving robots, but it seems like what they described could be useful inside of a sorting/loading center.
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Human beings are better security. (Score:3)
The good and the bad of new tech (Score:1)
It's always the classic of "first to market" can be a disaster when it involves a truly new technology.
Examples of when it goes wrong for a very long time (but if you throw money at it long enough it can work):
Apple gets complaints about copying features of their competitors, but they end up far more profitable due to avoiding putting a feature on sale unless it's truly ready (with the notable exception of the bad laptop keyboards about five years ago).
The
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... Yes, you pay extra to drive around acting as a beta tester.
True, but to be fair, I can't envision a time where "self-driving" cars aren't collecting data and using it to determine the safety and efficiency of the automated driver. Roads and traffic are always evolving, so the systems need to be able to adapt. ...but your main point is well taken. I may not be the greatest driver on the road, but I mostly understand why other drivers do what they do (even if I don't like what they do).
Until I am comfortable that the cars can anticipate what other cars will do, I'l
Self-driving cooler in the ghetto. Robot Assault. (Score:1)
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That's OK. Phase 2 of the project [google.com] would have outfitted it with defensive weapons.
Dean Kamen must be quite the salesman (Score:3)
He consistently gets influential people excited enough to buy into things that don't pan out.
Dean Kamen is creative and successful (Score:3)
He consistently gets influential people excited enough to buy into things that don't pan out.
He holds over 1,000 patents, and co-started First [wikipedia.org] (the group that holds the robotics competitions).
He's built a ton of useful and successful products that you've never heard about, which you could discover by reading his Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org].
I've never understood why so many people want to tear down the accomplishments of others.
Prototyping involves lots of failures for a few successes. Whether you focus on the failures or the successes depends on the type of person you are.
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I've never understood why so many people want to tear down the accomplishments of others.
Some of us remember all the hype and bally-hoo surrounding the mysterious product code-named "Ginger" (what turned out to be the Segway).
Advanced Wheelchair tie-in (Score:2)
What's that in radians? (Score:2)
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why no love for those of us who use radians?
I think it's fair to say that if you cannot convert 180 or 380 degrees to radians in your head pretty much instantly, you probably do not ever use them.
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why no love for those of us who use radians?
I think it's fair to say that if you cannot convert 180 or 380 degrees to radians in your head pretty much instantly, you probably do not ever use them.
360, obviously... freaking typos.
It's damn hard (Score:3)
On the other hand, it has to deal with an even less structured environment than, say, a highway. It has to live side-by-side with lots of not-cars, like pedestrians, who are just plain unpredictable, and sometimes intentionally malicious. Is it supposed to operate on the open roads, sidewalks (of any or all quality), or both? All that computer power for sensors, machine vision, and path planning does not come for free, and a robot like this has less energy storage available than an EV battery or ICE.
So, all in all, it's just damn hard. Kudos for trying, though. Perhaps the biggest metric is to just look around: Tesla and other auto makers, Waymo (Google), and a dozen other outfits are working really hard on this. Collectively, I'd wager there's 10^4 full time engineers working on this in the U.S., burning through billions of dollars per year, and they still haven't cracked it.
These things are magnets for abuse (Score:2)
There's a lot of people who aren't exactly pleased with the evolution of the United States into a corporate kleptocracy, with both parties owned by donors and indifferent to voters. They are aching to strike back, and one easy way would involve taking a pickaxe to these things.
It will never work in the ghetto (Score:2)
Look at these 2 punks destroy a delivery robot.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts... [youtube.com]
I for one welcome the abandonment of our robot... (Score:2)