The British start-up ‘Academy of Robotics‘ has developed a fleet of ‘Kar-go’ autonomous, green medicine-delivering cars, which has already begun trials on public roads in the London Borough of Hounslow in west London, England.
If all goes well, Kar-go will be the first custom-built autonomous delivery vehicle to carry out last-mile deliveries on UK public roads.
Meet Kar-Go
Kar-go can carry a maximum of 48 parcels and travel at speeds of 60 mph (96 km/h). It uses an artificial intelligence system to figure out the fastest possible route to delivery and manage its parcels. Once it’s time to recharge the vehicle, it takes around 3 hours to charge entirely.
It took the Academy of Robotics four years to develop Kar-go. The start-up’s main goal was to gain a position in the growing last-mile delivery market. What is a last-mile delivery? It’s the movement of goods from a transportation hub to its final delivery destination, such as a personal residence.
While Kar-go will eventually drive autonomously, the first trials have human operators inside the vehicle to assist if needed as a safety precaution.
Contact-Free Delivery
The start-up is transporting medicines from pharmacies to care homes, to test out its contact-free delivery. Kar-go drives itself to and from the sender and recipient’s address.
Once their parcel has arrived at the delivery address, a smartphone app will notify the recipient. The Kar-go’s robotic conveyor system then allows for an easy contact-free hand-over of the recipient’s parcel.
Last-Mile Delivery Trials
The Academy of Robotics chose the Hounslow for its first Kar-go trials since it’s a semi-urban residential area where a significant number of last-mile deliveries occur. The start-up plans to perform more tests after this first, with its second expected to occur in Banstead, Surrey. However, there’s no information on exactly when Kar-go will be fully operative on public roads.
