News briefs for the week take a look at Christmas in Milton Keynes with Santa handing off gift deliveries to reindeer-painted robots, then to the first robot factory ever for rural Indiana’s farmers, then to preventing failures and explosions within industrial storage tanks using wall-climbing robots, to ABB creating a much-needed factory-built homebuilding industry in partnership with Porsche, and then to Chipotle adding “climate-smart fertilizer” to its menu.
Santa comes to town as a mobile reindeer robot
Santa’s Christmas gifts are delivered by autonomous vehicles in downtown Milton Keynes, UK, painted like reindeer. Tradition and modern technology come together to bring joy to the holidays.
Fifty miles northwest of London, about 100 of San Francisco-based Starship Technologies’ autonomous vehicles are used to deliver most anything in town. Decorated like reindeer, these vehicles offer a perfect solution for delivering Christmas presents to friends and family. In addition to the cost of a nicely wrapped present, delivery charges (depending on the distance) start at 99 pence ($1.20).
Founded in 2014, Starship has taken autonomous delivery from a future concept to a daily part of life. The founders, Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, believe that robots are vital in solving last-mile delivery challenges.
Starship delivery robots have completed over 5 million autonomous deliveries worldwide—the first and only robot delivery company to do so!
Milton Keynes, a new town of about 300k residents, with its wide paths and cycleways for robots to drive, is ideal for Starship robots. Residents admit that they hardly notice the bots a few months after deliveries began, indicating the success of the new technology. The robots navigate along pre-mapped routes using satellite positioning and sensors to create a “bubble of awareness” around the robot. On arrival, customers use their phone to unlock the robot’s storage compartment and collect their shopping. If anyone tries to steal them or their contents, the bots emit a high-pitched shriek.
Rural Indiana’s First Robot Factory
All of which is precisely why the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network (WHIN) worked so hard to get a robot factory built in West Lafayette, Indiana. WHIN is a consortium of 10 counties in north-central Indiana devoted to working together to develop the region into a global epicenter of digital agriculture and next-generation manufacturing.
Brazil-based Solix Ag Robotics, in conjunction with WHIN, is building the Midwest’s first factory dedicated to agricultural robotics. Specifically, the Sprayer robot was on display at this year’s Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois. The Solix Sprayer is able to make precise applications of herbicides, which allows for extremely efficient weed control. Solix claims a near 95% saving in the use of herbicides and plans to produce 20 Solix robots per day.
Wall-climbing robots prevent disasters in storage tanks
Invert Robotics provides non-destructive inspection services using tracked, mobile climbing robots. The problem with these types of warehouses is that both the exterior and interior walls, as well as the tanks’ pipe networks, need constant surveillance and preventive maintenance to avoid explosions like the 2021 multi-tank explosion of #6 heating fuel in Ennis, TX. Invert’s wall-crawling robots inspections are far more precise and faster than manual inspections and are backed by $2.8 million in new investments..
ABB’s robots to build homes
Swiss-based ABB Robotics thinks it has found a way to make billions of dollars by building modular homes in a factory. ABB Robotics and Porsche Consulting have announced a collaboration to drive automation in the construction industry with a pilot project to develop new practices in modular housing manufacturing. ABB and Porsche feel that more intelligent automation will offset widespread construction labor shortages and boost productivity, “allow greater customization and enable more sustainable and efficient construction practices.”
Chipotle’s new menu item: climate-smart fertilizer
Food retailer and restaurant-chain giant Chipotle has invested in Greenfield Robotics, a company leveraging artificial intelligence, robotics and sensing technology, and Nitricity, a company producing fertilizer without carbon emissions. This investment will help develop additional autonomous solutions for micro-spraying, cover-crop planting and soil testing, and will support the launch of Nitricity’s first commercial product. Field trials of Nitricity’s fertilizer have begun with select farmers in Salinas Valley and also with some of Chipotle’s farm suppliers.