There are more and more robots for delivery in Los Angeles: how they work and what they do

There are more and more robots for delivery in Los Angeles: how they work and what they do Do the robots that deliver hot food and items throughout Los Angeles be "retiring" the delivery drivers? Why? They look like toy-like refrigerators on wheels from a Pixar movie, but they are Silicon Valley's latest bet to solve the expensive and polluting problem of the "last mile," that final stretch of delivery - from a distribution center to the customer's home - which is usually the most expensive, slowest, and most difficult to operate. Today, there is something deeply strange about walking on the sidewalks of Santa Monica or West Hollywood while avoiding machines that, at first glance, look like kitchen appliances. They make no noise, they don't ask permission with their voices, but they surround you with the precision of someone who has mapped every crack or unevenness in the pavement. They are the new owners of the sidewalk: small autonomous vehicles that are rewriting the urban geography of the West Coast of the United States. While in cities like Santiago the delivery debate remains stuck between combustion motorcycles and the friction of the collaborative economy, in Los Angeles the picture is already different. The thermal backpacks on a driver's back are slowly being replaced by fleets of rovers that look like a mix between WALL-E and a camping cooler. Among them, two names dominate the streets at a glance: Serve Robotics and Coco. The Crossover between Uber Eats and the LiDAR Brain Serve Robotics is not an improvised experiment. Born in the bowels of Postmates (before the Uber matrix absorbed it), these robots are, in essence, the future vision of Uber Eats without the human factor. If today you order food in certain areas of L.A., it is very likely that the app assigns you one of these carts. They are equipped with the same technology as an autonomous driving car like Waymo, but miniaturized. They use a system of rotating LiDAR sensors on top, 360-degree cameras, and a processor capable of deciding in milliseconds whether that skateboarder will cross or not to the left. Their design is "almost adorable" on purpose - they even have digital "eyes" that blink to warn where they will turn - a psychological trick from industrial design to generate empathy and prevent pedestrians from vandalizing them. Coco: the delivery "game" But total autonomy is not the only answer to the problem. A few meters away from a Serve Robotics, it is common to cross paths with the agile and colorful vehicles of Coco Robotics, another startup born at UCLA that -according to LA Times data- has deployed more than 1,000 robots across the country, with a radically different and, in a way, more pragmatic approach. Instead of entrusting everything to an Artificial Intelligence algorithm, many of Coco's robots are, in practice, teleoperated avatars. Miles away, human "pilots" sitting in front of monitors drive them using controllers similar to those on a console, dodging trash cans and dogs as if they were in a low-speed "game." They are smaller, more elusive, and by outsourcing the brain to a remote human, they bypass the costly hardware of full autonomy of their competitors. The Last Mile Dilemma Behind the visual anecdote, there is a business model trying to balance the numbers. The logistics of the "last mile" - the final stretch from the restaurant to the customer's door - has always been the most expensive, inefficient, and polluting link in the chain. Moving a car weighing almost two tons to deliver a hamburger or a couple of sushi rolls is a thermal and urban absurdity. These robots attack that logistical absurdity. They are 100% electric, relieve vehicular traffic, and reduce local delivery emissions. That is to say, in addition to being a novel solution, the main goal of these companies is to reduce car traffic in the city and lower carbon emissions by using 100% electric vehicles for short trips. How do the Los Angeles delivery robots work? To use them, you simply place an order through apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, or the apps of the restaurants associated with Coco. Then, the restaurant loads the food into the robot's compartment and locks it. The robot travels along the sidewalk, avoiding pedestrians, to your location. When it arrives, you receive a notification on your phone with a code or a button in the app to unlock the lid. Finally, you take the food, close the lid, and the robot turns on its wheels to go on to its next mission. COMMENTS To comment on this article, you must be a subscriber. The Latest Most Read 3. Some read, others get informed. Take this unique offer. Digital Plan+$4,120 per month, from here until the end of the year SUBSCRIBE