Digit image: Ford

Ford recently teamed up with Agility Robotics — a Playground Global backed robotics company spun out of Oregon State University — on a new bipedal autonomous delivery robot named Digit, that’ll carry out the final step of getting delivered packages from the vehicle to the customer’s door. The new robot is a stand-out concept of many designs and visions laid out by various companies for robo-deliveries.

Digit, the two-legged robot is made of lightweight material and is capable of lifting packages weighing up to 40 pounds (18.1kg). It can go up and down stairs, work through uneven terrain and even react to physical actions like being bumped into without losing its balance and tripping over.

Ford and Agility Robotics fitted the package delivery robot with wheels to make it easy for walking through obstacles. It’s capable of folding itself up for easy storage at the back of a delivery vehicle until it’s called into action. In Ford’s vision, the delivery vehicle will be driverless. Digit is also capable of tapping resources from another device that’s equipped with heavy computing hardware for additional support and analytical skills when required.

When a delivery vehicle gets Digit to the delivery destination, it can wirelessly deliver all information the robot needs, for example, the best pathway to the front door. Digit comprises of a lidar and a few stereo cameras, giving it enough sensory power to navigate through basic scenarios.

Ford

Ford

An external device then comes into play once the robot encounters an unxpected obstacle. It can send an image back to the device and have it configure a solution or even send it to the cloud and request help from other systems.

Share this...

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Linkedin

Whatsapp

Email

Print