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Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

gita.piaggiofastforward.com

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Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#31

Post by trome »

lowglow wrote: post #29

At Asteria, we were looking for a proof of concept implementation of something we're working on. One of my friends worked as an engineer/designer at Buell (motorcycles), is a mech engineer, has done loads of work on electric vehicles, and is interested in autonomous vehicle tech. He flew out here and we decided to walk the streets of San Francisco to consider dimensionality required to successfully autonomously navig…

Your going to be competing with Vehicles or Pedestrians one way or the other, I highly doubt any city is going to blow tens of billions on a grade separated autonomous delivery thoroughfare. Most cities are barely willing to put paint down for bike lanes, let alone create a physical barrier so they are safe for cyclists to use daily.

Unless you are restricting deliveries to within 2 or 3 miles of where they start from (considering people walk at 3mph, and Segways were banned from sidewalks for going 10mph) you will probably be on the roadway.

Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#32

Post by buzzybee »

Animats wrote: post #15

Starship Technologies has a similar robot.[1] They asked the Redwood City city council for permission to operate this on Redwood City sidewalks. This was granted. Startship made a video of a delivery from La Tartine, which is a downtown bakery. But I asked the clerks at La Tartine, and they haven't seen the robot again since the video was made months ago. Both Gita and Starship have the feel of a startup with a great…

I get the impression that Starship is doing test deployments in many different cities. The videos are probably indeed intended as press pushes, but they make a lot of them, they try a lot of different locations and conditions, and they interview generously and with a focus towards business value, which speaks to the underlying tech being sound in principle. I would be much more concerned if they were showing the same laboratory environments over and over or focused their videos on unsubstantial claims about the tech - they don't do either of those things. Here's some more recent coverage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GpaAF3_lKA

And while there are some obvious limitations to wheeled bots as a door-to-door courier system, the market for "personal luggage that follows you", which is more like what Gita is trying, could also be a pretty good one, and less ridiculous looking than "luggage you ride," [0] our current incumbent for luggage innovation. Having a bot stay by you has the gratifying feeling of having a pet or perhaps a servant.

These small scales and low speeds are much more amenable to experimenting, making mistakes, and ceding control than a highway-speed automation, as well. At worst, they're toys, but toys are often a good starting point for serious stuff too. It makes for very efficient R&D.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npEkbCmE31Y

Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#33

Post by scotu »

riffraff wrote: post #26
2pointsomone wrote: post #23

What's with the name Gita? You know it is the name of the holy book of Hindus, right? Then again, there is the infamous tech book series "Bible".

it's italian for "trip" (or school trip, or field trip), the mother company here is Piaggio which is an italian manufacturer.

to complete since it's internationally know better then Piaggio's name, the Vespa scooter is produced by Piaggio

Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#34

Post by lowglow »

trome wrote: post #31
lowglow wrote: post #29

At Asteria, we were looking for a proof of concept implementation of something we're working on. One of my friends worked as an engineer/designer at Buell (motorcycles), is a mech engineer, has done loads of work on electric vehicles, and is interested in autonomous vehicle tech. He flew out here and we decided to walk the streets of San Francisco to consider dimensionality required to successfully autonomously navig…

Your going to be competing with Vehicles or Pedestrians one way or the other, I highly doubt any city is going to blow tens of billions on a grade separated autonomous delivery thoroughfare. Most cities are barely willing to put paint down for bike lanes, let alone create a physical barrier so they are safe for cyclists to use daily. Unless you are restricting deliveries to within 2 or 3 miles of where they start fro…

Well 2-3 miles is fine, especially if you're considering graduated deployment of autonomous vehicles.

I'm a big proponent of refactoring the world to facilitate autonomous agents within our lives, so I think spending money to figure this out is part of what we should be doing.

Perhaps we need more people with similar opinions in government.

Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#35

Post by yellowapple »

sneak wrote: post #6

I want a city or neighborhood hooked up to a pneumatic tube system, like they have in bank drive-throughs, and I want at least one node of the pneumatic router network to be in an Amazon warehouse, and at least one other to be at a decent cheeseburger shop. Make sure it's wired for fiber internet and I will buy a condo in that development. Imagine ordering something up to the size and weight of a 3.5" HDD (or bacon d…

Are you in Minnesota, by chance? http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMM82_Pneumatic_Air_Drive...

But yeah, that'd be pretty awesome.

Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#36

Post by bigiain »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #30
amelius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it could be used by bad guys as a very dangerous delivery mechanism.

That horse left the barn a long time ago. You can strap some c4 to a drone very easily. You could do the same with an RC car cheaply 30 years ago. We aren't safe because it's difficult to hurt someone. We're safe because we keep an eye on the people who would do us harm.

Alternatively: "We're safe because most people aren't jerks."

Ascribing general personal safety to surveillance doesn't ring true to me. (It's _possible_ that surveillance mitigates extremely rare but extremely serious dangers to safety, but evidence of that seems scarce...)

Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#37

Post by serf »

Animats wrote: post #24
foota wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like theft might be an important practical concern for autonomous delivery.

For Starship, they have a remote voice link to the thing, and if someone is messing with it, central control can yell at them or send siren sounds. It locks remotely; people can't just open it easily. Someone could steal the whole thing, but its location is known and it has already sent video of people approaching it. Besides, stealing from it probably just yields a pizza, a Chinese dinner, or some random groceries.…

People will steal/vandalize it simply because it's strange and (probably) expensive itself, not only for the cargo.

For historic context see the early adoption woes of traffic and speed cameras.

A siren, cameras, and GPS feedback doesn't help against a molotov cocktail thrown with a mask, from around a corner, or high above; and lots of people don't like the idea of robots roaming the streets.

Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#38

Post by jayjay71 »

Animats wrote: post #24
foota wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like theft might be an important practical concern for autonomous delivery.

For Starship, they have a remote voice link to the thing, and if someone is messing with it, central control can yell at them or send siren sounds. It locks remotely; people can't just open it easily. Someone could steal the whole thing, but its location is known and it has already sent video of people approaching it. Besides, stealing from it probably just yields a pizza, a Chinese dinner, or some random groceries.…

People might just destroy the robot for fun though.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/hitchhiking-robot-manag...

I haven't thought through the economics on these systems, but there are enough startups working on it for me to think it must be a larger market than I realize. I wonder what the overhead is (how many robots you need to meet demand), how quickly they can deliver, and what other limitations they have (temperature control, weather resistance, ability to traverse stairs/elevators).

At what point do these machines become cheaper than humans? I understand that they are likely meant to be a supplement as opposed to a replacement, but until they can compete with humans there's not much of a business.

Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#39

Post by wcarss »

buzzybee wrote: post #32
Animats wrote: post #15

Starship Technologies has a similar robot.[1] They asked the Redwood City city council for permission to operate this on Redwood City sidewalks. This was granted. Startship made a video of a delivery from La Tartine, which is a downtown bakery. But I asked the clerks at La Tartine, and they haven't seen the robot again since the video was made months ago. Both Gita and Starship have the feel of a startup with a great…

I get the impression that Starship is doing test deployments in many different cities. The videos are probably indeed intended as press pushes, but they make a lot of them, they try a lot of different locations and conditions, and they interview generously and with a focus towards business value, which speaks to the underlying tech being sound in principle. I would be much more concerned if they were showing the same…

odd sighting: your first youtube link has a brief cameo of the scream mask in the stock footage of delivery trucks: https://youtu.be/1GpaAF3_lKA?t=31

Re: Gita – autonomous lightweight delivery system

#40

Post by [deleted] »

serf wrote: post #37
Animats wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Starship, they have a remote voice link to the thing, and if someone is messing with it, central control can yell at them or send siren sounds. It locks remotely; people can't just open it easily. Someone could steal the whole thing, but its location is known and it has already sent video of people approaching it. Besides, stealing from it probably just yields a pizza, a Chinese dinner, or some random groceries.…

People will steal/vandalize it simply because it's strange and (probably) expensive itself, not only for the cargo. For historic context see the early adoption woes of traffic and speed cameras. A siren, cameras, and GPS feedback doesn't help against a molotov cocktail thrown with a mask, from around a corner, or high above; and lots of people don't like the idea of robots roaming the streets.

[deleted]
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