Robots have found a new purpose during the coronavirus crisis: to deliver medical supplies to two California stadiums that have become COVID-19 treatment facilities.
The autonomous vehicle startup company Nuro, has temporarily shut down its operations in California because of the ban on nonessential transportation.
However, Nuro realized it could still deliver goods for healthcare workers using its R2 prototype vehicles. Dave Ferguson, CEO of Nuro, said these lightweight electric vehicles are completely driverless and can also provide contactless delivery.
California uses delivery robots for health workers fighting COVID-19
In an interview with The Verge, Ferguson said that "robots are not solving this crisis." However, by providing "contactless delivery of goods," Nuro helps transport essential supplies to frontline healthcare workers while reducing the possibility of contagion.
Aside from food, Nuro's robots deliver personal protective equipment (PPE), clean linens, and other supplies to workers at the Event Center in San Mateo and the Sleep Train Arena, which is the home to the Sacramento Kings. Both facilities have been converted into field hospitals to manage the surge in COVID-19 patients.
The process of transport is easy. Humans load and unload the vehicles at both ends of the route. While these robots usually require the recipient to enter a code on a touchscreen to open the doors, manufacturers tweaked the program to make it truly contactless. Now, it only requires a thumbs-up to the vehicle's camera, and then a Nuro operator will open the doors remotely.
Ferguson prides that what they are doing has reduced the amount of work that is usually done by healthcare staff. "This is where all the COVID patients are, so this is effectively a very high-risk exposure area," he said.
The vehicles assigned at both locations are on fixed programmed routes via private roads, which lessen chances to encounter complications. The R2 vehicles are capable of traveling up to 25 mph. But while on duty, they will be limited to 5 mph outdoors and 2.5 mph indoors.
Nuro's shift of operations
Nuro is the first autonomous vehicle operator to receive a federal exemption to mass-produce driverless vehicles without traditional controls like steering wheels or side-view mirrors. Also, the company is the second one to receive a permit to test its driverless delivery robots on public roads in California.
Nuro's typical operations involve grocery and food delivery in Arizona and Texas where it uses its fleet of retrofitted Toyota Priuses with two safety drivers. However, due to social distancing rules, the company is only using one safety driver on its operations in these two states.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter-in-place rules, the market-testing in California has been temporarily stopped.
The pandemic has made self-driving car companies unstable, especially those with not enough funding to sustain their operations through an extended shutdown. Fortunately, Nuro has avoided layoffs by developing tools that allow its operations team to "contribute remotely from their homes," as well as investing in a simulation that allows it to continue running its vehicle tests in a virtual world.
"We're feeling pretty good about this being within our control . . . and it's sort of up to us to execute and make it happen," Ferguson said.
Perhaps, the nearly $1billion Softbank investment they received has also helped keep the company's confidence afloat during these trying times.
