Serve Robotics has announced a pilot partnership with Wing Aviation to expand the reach of its autonomous food delivery without requiring restaurants to install new equipment to accommodate drone pickups.
Serve, which was It emerged from the app-based delivery company Postmates. In 2021, it has been delivering food through Uber Eats in Los Angeles for a few years, using robots that look like autonomous shopping carts. Serve says its delivery robots can be a safer alternative to cars and help reduce traffic congestion since they operate primarily on sidewalks. Since they have a maximum speed of around six miles per hour, there should be little to no risk to pedestrians. But that approach also limits the robot's ability to deliver food in a timely manner.
Additionally, although Serve says its robots have a range of up to 25 miles while carrying 50 pounds of food, half of the deliveries it makes in Los Angeles are made “within two miles of a restaurant,” according to Dr. Ali Kashani. CEO and co-founder of Serve.
The pilot partnership with Wing, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, is an attempt to expand that delivery range to a six-mile radius using a multimodal robot-to-drone delivery solution. Last year, Wing introduced its Wing Delivery Network, which includes AutoLoader stations where its autonomous drones pick up deliveries. Retailers can choose to install these AutoLoader stations in their parking lots, but that is not an option for smaller restaurants.
The pilot partnership will initially roll out in Dallas, where one of Serve's delivery robots will pick up “select Wing deliveries” at a restaurant. The robot will then take it to a Wing AutoLoader station “a few blocks away,” according to Serve, where a drone will complete the delivery. From Wing's drones travel up to 65 mph and are not slowed down by traffic lights or road congestion, the partnership will potentially bring a best-of-both-worlds approach to autonomous food delivery.
The service is expected to begin in the coming months and will also help Wing expand its drone delivery services to merchants located in areas where space is limited and who do not want to hire additional staff to act as middlemen.
