Amazon is expanding research and development efforts into “autonomous delivery technology,” it revealed today.
It created a new team in its Cambridge, England, facility to focus on Amazon Scout.
What is Amazon Scout? The company explained:
“Amazon Scout devices are the size of a small cooler and roll along pavements at a walking pace. The service is in field test mode, currently delivering packages to customers in four states in the U.S, but will continue to expand to more customers.”
Amazon is hiring software development engineers at the forefront of robotics and autonomous systems technology to join the team in Cambridge, which will work closely with the Amazon Scout research lab in Seattle to develop on-system software. The goal is to help Scout delivery devices safely and autonomously navigate around pedestrians, pets, and obstacles found in residential neighborhoods, such as recycling bins and sign posts,” according to the company’s blog post.
You can see Amazon Scout in action in a January 2019 video.
