Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Delivery Drones? No. How About Cute Little Delivery Robots

Marco Rima   
Delivery Drones? No. How About Cute Little Delivery Robots
Skype’s co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis have launched a “cute self-driving” robot company called Starship Technologies. The purpose of Starship Technologies is to solve the “Last Mile Problem” in delivery goods from the transportation hub to the customers home. Companies like Google and Amazon have attempted to combat the “Last Mile Problem” by using drones, however air regulations have been extremely strict post 9/11 and they have yet to get over this regulatory Road Blocks. Starship technologies will attempt to cut cost which come along with the “Last Mile Problem” by replacing delivery trucks with their little robots.
            Starship Technologies will attempt to cut the costs behind the “Last Mile Problem” which experts say contributes to at least 28% of the total transportation cost. Heinla and Friis say their robots could provide a safer solution in delivering goods by taking trucks and drivers off the road making life better for everyone. We all hate those UPS trucks double-parked on your street right? Heinla the founder of Starship Technologies said, “The Robots will travel on pavements and sidewalks blending safely in with pedestrian traffic.” The robots will travel at a brisk speed of four miles per hour. The robots will be able to carry up to two grocery bags worth of goods and customers will be able to track the robot and gain access of the robot through a mobile app to avoid theft.
            This article over looked safety. If a hacker wanted to hack into this robot and change its location to him or herself, opened the drone, put a weapon of mass destruction in it and sent back out to the public or back to its original destination he or she (the hacker) could cause serious damage to society. Starship Technologies is taking a very high risk every time it sends a robot out for a delivery. It is much harder for a determined thief to steal a delivery truck oppose to a tiny robot that could potentially resell for a lot of money. Starship also must account for nature. Mother nature is a savage and this robot will have to jump an even higher hurdle oppose to that of delivery trucks during inclement weather. If these robots cant deliver then customers will be dissatisfied. No body likes or wants unhappy customers.


http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/03/technology/starship-delivery-robots/

4 comments:

  1. I would love to see cute little delivery robots roam the streets delivering packages, but I don’t see it happening in today’s world. I see a couple of problems with these robots. The main problem with these robots is a topic that you touched on, theft. If people steal from stores and people, what in the world would stop a thief from stealing from a robot? This is a major problem because it has a negative impact on both the seller and consumer. Not only will the seller have to compensate the consumer with another good for free, but they will probably loose the consumer in the process. Another problem you run into with these robots is the amount of demand they can hold. Trucks can hold up to hundreds and hundreds of packages, while these robots can only hold up to two grocery bags worth of goods. Although I have only touched on the negative, these little robots do have some positive aspects. The positives include cutting costs and freeing up space on the road, which you touched on. Overall I don’t see these little robots working in today’s world but I will be very interested to see if any companies choose to implement them in their delivering services.

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  2. I think the idea of cute little delivery robots is very futuristic, yet very attainable at the same time. With today’s technology I am not surprised that this company is making an attempt at this feat. I would be very surprised to see a robot walking down the sidewalk, coming up the pathway to my house, and putting a package on my front step. While this idea is very cool, it is also very frightening. There are many possible complications that could go hand in hand with this robot delivery service. The robots would need to have sensors to avoid walking into things on the street, and they would also need a very accurate gps device to prevent them from going in the wrong direction. I would also be worried about these robots getting hacked. While delivery drones definitely have more potential to cause damage if they are hacked, delivery robots could definitely cause some damage as well if they are given weapons, or programmed to attack a certain person.

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  3. Delivery Robots are futuristic and could be a great way to save money for a company but might be detrimental to the economy. As a business owner I do not think this would be an effective way to attract customers. A speedy delivery is always something a consumer wants but the risks totally outweigh the rewards. Having all of these drones around would simply be an eye sore and to me personally that is not something I would want to see everyday. A company would have to spend so much money on these machines and there is no way to know if they will be successful or not. Also, once this technology is produced you would be putting thousands and thousands of truck drivers out of business and potentially hurting the economy if this item does not show well. Next, the drones would have to be indestructible for them not to be stolen or tampered with. Also I would have to completely agree, Mother Nature is a savage. That is another reason why these machines would have to be virtually indestructible. Overall I believe the drones are not a promising way to use information technology.

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  4. Starship Technologies is a new company hoping to eliminate the last mile problem for shipping companies, and change shipping methods forever. The last mile problem is a problem that haunts any kind of delivery service. A company can only deliver goods as fast as it takes to travel the last mile, or the distance from the distribution center to the customers home. Delivery trucks have to make countless stops and zig zag across towns and back to deliver some goods to their customers, and this is where the problem lies. As the author points out: “experts say contributes to at least 28% of the total transportation cost.” Any problem, where if solved, can cut 28% of total costs NEEDS to be considered. But with this new technology it’s not all about the costs. In addition, as the author points out again: “their robots could provide a safer solution in delivering goods by taking trucks and drivers off the road making life better for everyone.” Imagine a world without the countless delivery trucks blocking the road everyday. Cities would be less congested and traffic could be reduced. Unfortunately this article did over look a few glaring safety concerns with these new robots, and i do not think they are quite ready yet. The first of these is theft. How are these robots going to protect people’s goods? They could either physically be taken from the robot, or the robots could easily be hacked and re-directed. The article does mention that these robots can be tracked, but that isn’t useful when it does nothing to prevent someone from physically taking their goods, or hacking the site where you track the robot. Additionally these robots need to be able to withstand extreme conditions and obstacles found in everyday life. They would need to be able to climb stairs, know where to leave a package, open doors, operate in any weather condition, avoid people, ect. There are countless other unseen obstacles that these robots would have to deal with. Overall I think this is a great technology that could one day change the way we get things delivered to us, but for now there are to many problems and obstacles that need to be overcome before we begin seeing robots on our streets.

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