According to Starship Technologies: “The semi-autonomous transportation system will see Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans act as ’motherships’, hosting eight delivery robots. The vans will drive through neighbourhoods, stopping in designated locations, based on delivery density and demand, to drop off and pick up robots to complete customer deliveries.”, postandparcel.info reports.
The robots will be loaded with their goods in the ‘Robovan’ using a racking system that enables 400 packages to be delivered every 9-hour shift, compared to 180 packages using previously available methods, an increase of over 120%.
The Mercedes-Benz Vans partnership follows Starship Technologies’ launch of commercial delivery tests in the UK, Germany and Switzerland in August 2016 with partners Just Eat, Hermes, Metro Group, and Swiss Post, offering robotic delivery for the food, grocery and parcel industries.
Mercedes Benz is working on projects which combine trucks with land-based delivery robots (from Starship) and also trucks equipped with flying drones, courtesy of Matternet. In the “Vision Van” model with the Matternet drones, the drones will use “technology that is integrated into the roof of the van, allowing for precision landing and automatic payload and battery exchange”.
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