Few things in life offer more reward for less effort than home-delivered pizza. But while the idea of sinking your teeth into a tasty slice can be appealing, the bummer is the pesky delivery guy, who loiters in the doorway judging your slovenly outfit and your measly tip. The solution" Robots, duh.
But these aren?t just your run-of-the-mill C-3PO knock-off humanoid bots. They’re fully enclosed, four-wheeled carbohydrate-dispensing machines, complete with heated and cooled, lockable compartments that require the purchaser to enter a passcode to retrieve their delivered food. Its space-age, Kubrickian exterior styling is sure to appeal to middle-age sci-fi geeks as well as neighborhood paintball enthusiasts.
Domino?s Pizza?which happens to share its hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with Car and Driver?has a long history of delivery innovation, including in recent years electric vehicles and Chevrolet Spark?based custom delivery wagons. When it came time to go robotic, Domino’s called in Australian technology startup Marathon Targets to help in the creation of its autonomous delivery vehicles. Containing thousands of dollars worth of military robotics tech, the Domino’s Robotic Unit (DRU) employs GPS tracking technology that syncs with Google Maps?naturally?and LIDAR to identify the surrounding environment, which essentially means it won’t crash into random vehicles or attack the neighbor kids playing in the street?although one imagines there are ...