Sidewalk robots are set to help some of their airborne counterparts with deliveries in Dallas under an agreement between key players in the industry.
Serve Robotics, which develops automated four-wheeled machines, unveiled a pilot partnership to work with Wing, a drone delivery company, to help improve the efficiency of transporting orders, according to statement. The effort, which marks Serve’s entry into Texas, is set to arrive in the coming months.
“Together, Serve and Wing share an ambitious vision for reliable and affordable robotic delivery at scale,” Ali Kashani, CEO of Serve, said in a statement. “Our end-to-end robotic delivery solution will be the most efficient mode for the significant majority of deliveries.”
The partnership is addressing a challenge for some deliveries: getting the orders to a place where drones can launch. The flying devices need space at pickup areas, which can be challenging in crowded urban settings — while sidewalk robots are built to navigate city streets, even as the range can be limited.
Under the new arrangement, Serve delivery robots will take restaurant orders curbside and deliver them to a drone “Autoloader” to transfer the meals. From there, the package will then be aerial delivered to customers up to 6 miles away.
By leveraging the strengths of both technologies, Serve and Wing will enable more reliable food delivery, the statement said.
“Through this pilot partnership, Wing hopes to reach more merchants in highly-congested areas while supporting Serve as it works to expand its delivery radius,” Adam Woodworth, CEO at Wing, said in the statement.
Serve operates its delivery service in Los Angeles and also has done a pilot in Vancouver, B.C. Serve, spun off from Uber in 2021 as an independent company, has completed deliveries for partners such as Uber Eats and 7-Eleven. Wing, which operates in the Dallas area and assists Walmart with deliveries, became a subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent of Google, in 2018.
Dallas is no stranger to sidewalk robots. For example, the University of Texas at Dallas has enabled deliveries of meals via the autonomous machines.
