How Dispatch's Carry Robot heralds the replacement of Delivery and Postal Workers

“Essentially what we’re trying to do is build autonomous delivery infrastructure”

Dispatch co-founder Uriah Baalke in an interview with Fortune Magazine

Self driving delivery vehicles are now a trend worth watching.

On Wednesday April 6^th 2016, Dispatch, a start-up that makes autonomous delivery vehicles, received US$2 million from venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz as reported in the article “Self-Driving Delivery Robots Are Coming To A Sidewalk Near You”, published April 6, 2016, by Brian Solomon, Forbes.

 

The company was founded by Uriah Baalke, Stav Braun and Sonia Jin who had previously worked together at Floored, a real estate software in New York City. Their company is the result of a HAX hardware accelerator program in San Francisco since November 2015.

Behold, their latest creation, more proof that robots are coming to take our jobs in the Delivery and Postal world, after they’ve overtaken banking as I'd predicted in my blog article entitled “How Citibank predicts 30% of banking jobs use robots as smartphones and Mobile Money spread”.

So how does this particular robot plan to take away your delivery job?

Dispatch's Carry Robot - Why stealing this three wheeled deliver robot is a bad idea

Their main product is a robot called Carry, a 0.9 m by 0.9 m (3" by 3") robot that weights 68 kg (150 lb) that can transport up to 45.35 kg (100 lb) worth of items in its four (4) internal compartments. It’s currently being tested at two college campuses–Menlo College and Cal State Monterey Bay. It can operate for 12 hours on a single charge and travels at a maximum speed of 4 km/h.

Dispatch's Carry robot vehicles uses GPS, LIDAR and a sophisticated Camera system coupled with AI (Artificial Intelligence) to sense its environment and avoid obstacles as noted in “Why your next UPS driver might be an ugly robot on wheels”, published April 6, 2016 by Max Taves, CNET.

Customers can track its location using their smartphone and is unlocked via an app on their smartphones as well. In case you thinking of stealing this thing, good luck lifting 68 kg (150 lb) plus 45.35 kg (100 lb) worth of items that has GPS and five cameras that’ll alert its handles to your location.

Dispatch's Carry the replacement for the Postal Worker - Why Postal Workers need to beware these wheeled Warriors

This product reminds me of the Domino's Robotic Unit, which will soon start delivering pizza in New Zealand as described in my blog article entitled “How Marathon Robotics Dominoes Robotic Unit will replace Pizza Delivery in New Zealand”. 

Dispatch plans to make money from selling their services to potential clients rather than selling their robots as pointed out in the article “This Cute Self-Driving Robot Wants to Deliver Your Food or Laundry”, published APRIL 6, 2016 by Kia Kokalitcheva, Fortune.

Dispatch envisions a future filled with these robots on predetermined pathways along sidewalks. Albeit super slow, they have an advantage over drones in that they’re cheaper, to quote Andreessen Horowitz partner Chris Dixon: “The technology is at this inflection point potentially where it can work really well. If you actually study the math of shipping a toothbrush to you, it costs $5 for a flying drone and just 50 cents on the ground”

That significant cost differential means autonomous vehicles, not drones, will probably be the first robots to go commercial in the US of A.

This may potentially replace postal workers a lot more easily than drones as noted in my blog article entitled “SingPost Postal Package Delivery Drones - Why Postal Corporation of Jamaica Mini-Drone Airports for Jamaica” 

Expect more competition in the future as other start-ups start springing up like poppies to catch this low hanging fruit of robotic deliveries.