Throughout the pandemic, the e-commerce giant already began testing its Scout autonomous delivery system, which is comprised of six-wheeled robots that carry out contactless delivery, in the Irvine-area of California and Snohomish County, Washington.
In a blog post about the announcement, VP of Amazon Scout, Sean Scott, noted, “We are starting with a small number of Amazon Scout devices in each city, delivering Monday through Friday, during daylight hours.”
“Customers in both areas will order just as they normally would and their Amazon packages will be delivered either by one of our trusted carrier partners, or by Amazon Scout.”
The devices follow their delivery route automatically and move at a walking pace. Amazon has said that these delivery devices have been built to be “inherently safe”. In fact, these delivery devices have the ability to sense pedestrians, pets and other objects and hence navigate around them, ensuring the utmost safety.
Adding Atlanta and Franklin to their testing operations will enable these devices to experience different environments, neighborhoods and climates in an effort to enhance their usability and efficiency even further.
“Expanding our field test to Atlanta and Franklin is one of the many steps forwards for this new delivery system and on our path to net zero carbon by 2040… During a time when so many of our customers rely on us to get what they need, bringing Scout to these new locations supplements our transportation network and increases our capacity to deliver what our customers want,” added Scott.