How Marathon Robotics Dominoes Robotic Unit will replace Pizza Delivery in New Zealand

“This is an exciting opportunity for New Zealand... over the last 12 months I’ve been actively and aggressively promoting New Zealand as a test bed for new transport technology trials”

New Zealand Transport Minister Simon Bridges tells the AFP

Dominoes Pizza is finally getting rid of Human Deliveries.

This as they've unveiled their DRU (Domino’s Robotic Unit) in New Zealand that deliver pizza to your door as reported in the article “Domino’s unveil 'world’s first' pizza delivery robot”, published Thursday 17 March 2016 by Australian Associated Press, The UK Guardian.

Yes folks, the replacement of the Fast Food worker has truly begun as I'd predicted in my blog article entitled  “Fast Food Robot taking over by 2017 - How Drones like Amazon and PrimeAir and not Humanoid Robots will be the first Robots by 2015”.

No launch dates has been given, but expect this around the same time as the 31st staging of the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from August 5^th to 21^st 2016 as noted in my blog article entitled “How Jamaica's February 2016 Sports Calendar will help spread the Zika Virus”. 

This comes a no surprise, as Dominoes, a very tech-forward company, had already introduced a Siri-like virtual assistant to order pizza as well as text message orders with pizza emoji as noted in the article “Domino's will use robots to deliver pizzas in New Zealand trial of DRU autonomous bot will begin in Wellington”, published March 18, 2016 By Amar Toor, The Verge.

In fact, they'd introduced the Domicopter, a Drone that could deliver pizza in June 2013!

Still, I wonder, what will they do with the Dominoes Pizza Delivery Car?

But the DRU rolls on wheels instead of flying. So how will this DRU work?

Dominoes DRU to deliver pizza to New Zealanders - How Fast Food Workers will be replaced by Robots

 Built by Aussie start-up Marathon Robotics and in developed for the past eight months, the robot can do the following:

1.      Transport pizza

2.      Hot and cold Drinks in specially designed compartments

3.      Accept Payments

Costing US$22,000, the 4 wheeled robot uses GPS and LIDAR to move around at a max speed of 18 kmh (12 mph) as noted in the article “Domino’s has built a self-driving robot for pizza delivery”, published March 18, 2016 By Trevor Mogg, DigitalTrends.

It’s bristling with IP Cameras and is heavy, so stealing this would present quite a challenge for the grab-and-go thief who really likes pizza. Also the cargo is pointless to steal; it's just pizza, as none of the credit card information is stored on the Bot.

Worse, it might use a mobile Wallet platform compatible with Apple Pay, Google Play or Samsung Pay or even a mobile money platform based on QR codes as explained in my blog article entitled “Why WeChat ewallet in South Africa as ScotiaBank Jamaica and Digicel going Cashless”.

Legitimate customers gain access to the DRU's cargo via entering a special code provided by the staff when you order online. Hopefully this will be a product that'll stick around instead of fading into obscurity as with previous attempts to use robots to replace human-centric jobs as noted in “Domino's robot finally removes last vestiges of human contact from pizza delivery”, published 18 March 2016 by Claire Reilly, CNET News.

Also, it would be great if this thing could also fly like a drone, albeit it would need an awful lot of propulsion, be it rotors or mini-jet engines!