Robots provide food delivery at Oregon State University

(OCTOBER 25, 2020) It may look like a robot from a Star Wars movie, but those aren’t droids roaming around Oregon State University’s Corvallis campus. On Wednesday, Oct. 21, a fleet of 20 small Starship delivery robots started bringing food orders to students, staff and faculty across campus.

OSU is the first campus in the state to have autonomous delivery robots. OSU began planning to use delivery robots before the coronavirus pandemic. However, now they are even more necessary.

The boxy robots are small, with six wheels and a rounded white body. On top is a bright orange flag so that they are more visible. They can carry up to 20 pounds of food. They use a combination of GPS, sophisticated machine learning, artificial intelligence and sensors to travel on sidewalks and navigate around obstacles.

The computer vision-based navigation helps the robots to map their environment to the nearest inch. The robots can cross streets, climb curbs, travel at night and operate in both rain and snow. A team of humans monitor their progress remotely and can take control if needed. They have already made more than 500,000 deliveries.

When a customer places an order using the delivery app, they select a location to meet their delivery robot. The customer also receives a code in the app to unlock the robot. The robots can keep food hot or cold as well.