First, it was drones and now it is driverless deliveries for Amazon. The consumers in Britain will soon receive their Amazon orders at their doorsteps via a small self-driven car revealed the e-commerce giant. Amazon has always been at the forefront of reinventing mobility for its logistics business and this is yet another example of that.
The e-commerce giant has a new team in Cambridge that is developing work on Amazon Scout which is the companies full-electric autonomous delivery service. The Amazon Scout devices are said to be of the size of a small cooler and roll along with payments at walking speed. The service is currently in test mode for delivering packages in 4 states in the United States as well and now Amazon plans on expanding this service to the UK.
The team in Cambridge is building this technology
"Our investment in this new Amazon Scout team in the UK, which will consist of dozens of engineers, is driven by our partnership with the Cambridge community and made possible by the talented people who live here," Sean Scott, Vice President of Amazon Scout, wrote in a blog post.
"The team in Cambridge will work closely with the Amazon Scout research lab in Seattle, the US to develop on-system software to help Scout delivery devices safely and autonomously navigate around pedestrians, pets, and obstacles found in residential neighbourhoods such as recycling bins and signposts," Scott added.
The scout robots are tiny and will navigate autonomously
The company is making a huge push into robotics and autonomous systems. It is hiring software development engineers for the same. This comes on the heels of Amazon's announcement of creating 10,000 new permanent roles within the UK in 2020 taking the companies total workforce in the country to more than 40,000 people. Amazon has already added 3000 new permanent roles in the UK. The company will add another 7000 people by the end of this year across 50 sites including corporate offices and fulfilment centres in the North East and Midlands.
