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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Autonmous delivery is here, you must have so many questions. Here , we provide you with an overview of the Academy of Robotics and the medicine delivery trial that will feature the Kar-Go.

In 2016, after two years of planning and background work, Academy of Robotics was founded. We are a technology company focused on innovating in the realms of artificial intelligence and machine learning. We specialise in the development of software and hardware technology to perform or simplify complex tasks.

Our research and development team features experts in their respective fields of engineering, computer science and research. With active involvement in the academic circles that surround the future of artificial intelligence software and autonomous vehicles. Our flagship product is an autonomous devlivery vehicle designed to automate the process of last-mile delivery, our product is simply named Kar-go.

Q. What are our areas of industry focus?

Alongside our focus on autonomous driving, we have diversified the outputs of our innovative research and development to target other areas of industry focus. This includes the development of active vision systems that target a variety of uses, such as farm equipment and smart advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) technology.

Q. How is our research innovative?

Our research is innovative as it exists in a field only touched by a handful of companies and research institutes. Our team further focuses on cutting edge computer vision and biologically feasible artificial intelligence research as the next frontier in technology. Seeking to apply biological concepts such as evolution to the field of artificial intelligence to develop sophisticated, self learning and adaptive technologies. From a hardware and mechatronics standpoint, our engineering team custom builds much of the circuitry and hardware components associated with our research.

Q. What is Kar-Go?

Kar-Go is the first of its kind in the UK. A fully electric, custom in-house built autonomous delivery vehicle. With a space in the front of the vehicle for a safety driver, the rest of the vehicle is utilised for storage, capable of hosting up to 24 standard sized parcels within a smart robotics package system that can be dynamically inserted and removed from the vehicle to diversify its storage potential. Fitted with an array of cameras and sensors, Kar-Go is a fully capable autonomous vehicle as well as a responsive and informative semi-autonomous vehicle featuring a self-learning ADAS system.

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Q. Where did Kar-Go come from?

Kar-Go is the byproduct of identifying and seeking a solution to the logistics problem coined the last-mile delivery problem. This is the high costs and labour usage attributed to the last phase of a parcel’s delivery, in which it is dispatched from a depot to the recipient, hence the term last-mile. Current delivery methods involve a high cost associated with meeting the constantly growing demand for same-day or next-day deliveries, in which an increase in required gig workers and subsequent delivery schedules mean that this segment of the delivery process costs significantly more than all other components of the delivery, such as shipping.

Since the Academy of Robotics was founded in 2016, in the past four years we have been looking for a way to automate last-mile delivery. By the end of 2016, we had developed a small robotic pioneer archetype that was able to drive itself on unmarked roads and deliver a package.

In summer 2019, we unveiled Kar-Go at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. A result of the hard-work of some of the cutting-edge specialists in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, logistics and vehicle manufacturing in partnership with Pilgrim Motorsports. As a vehicle, its internal design is inspired by nature and the evolution of its artificial intelligence components draws heavily from a deep understanding of biological evolution. Understanding a need for a clean, last-mile delivery solution, Kar-Go was developed as a fully electric vehicle with decarbonisation in mind.

Q. How does Kar-Go work?

Internally, Kar-Go hosts a mixture of hardware and software tailored to driving fully autonomously on public roads. As a delivery vehicle, it hosts package space for up to 24 standard sized parcels.

The way Kar-Go works, is that a receiver places an order for a delivery. The sender then loads the Kar-Go vehicle, utilising its advanced package swap internal robotics system that reduces the need for a human-contact handover of the parcel, with the receiver able to collect the parcel directly from the rear of the vehicle via a secure touchpad interface. The receiver places their order via a web interface and is notified that the parcel has been dispatched and Kar-Go is on route. Within 30 minutes, Kar-Go notifies the receiver that the parcel is outside of their requested delivery address and they can collect it.

Q. What has Kar-Go done to date?

Since its unveiling at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed, Kar-Go has featured at a number of events. In November 2019, Kar-Go was demonstrated at a Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) Scotland event at the SEC in Glasgow and was displayed at the Maddox Gallery in London which featured industry experts and investors.

In December 2019, Academy of Robotics entered a partnership with high-way maintenance company, Eurovia. This partnership focused on accelerating the training of Kar-Go’s navigation software on unmarked roads by providing access to camera data, with Eurovia’s UK fleet covering over 50,000km of UK roads.

In December 2019, Academy of Robotics entered a partnership with high-way maintenance company, Eurovia. This partnership focused on accelerating the training of Kar-Go’s navigation software on unmarked roads by providing access to camera data, with Eurovia’s UK fleet covering over 50,000km of UK roads.

Throughout this timeframe, Kar-Go has continued to undergo testing at private tracks, on stilts testing, and the Pilgrim Motorsports facility.

Q. What is the medicine delivery trial?

The medicine delivery trial will focus on the no-human-contact delivery of medicine prescriptions from a local pharmacy to several care homes. This will utilise a smart package delivery system attributed to the Kar-Go vehicle that can remove the need for any human contact during the process. The window for these deliveries to be complete upon their request is within 30 minutes.

Q. Why is the medicine delivery trial important?

COVID 19 has introduced operating conditions which have created an influx of delivery demands and an increasingly heightened need for an innovation within the field that can provide no-human-contact alternatives to a variety of circumstances once previously unconsidered.

With the large risk of infection through human-contact, the vulnerable at care/retirement homes, as well as the general public, are unable to safely receive the medicine prescriptions they once did and so the introduction of a no-human-contact delivery alternative is of extreme importance. To ensure future safeguarding measures can be implemented for the remainder of this pandemic and looking to the future and any potential similar outbreaks and circumstances.

Furthermore, is the impact of COVID 19 on deliveries in general, which require significant financial investments into gig workers and courier hiring to fill a quota that has only got larger as customers have been unable to visit retail hubs themselves. As such, it is important that Kar-Go can fill the role of semi/fully-autonomous delivery vehicle to deal with the general last-mile delivery problem and its current exacerbated form as a result of pandemic restrictions and demands.

Q. How will this medicine delivery trial be done?

Kar-Go will utilise a technology process we call the arrival and departure procedure to develop a usable web interface from which a recipient of a medicine prescription during the trial can place an order. They will then be notified of this orders dispatch and within 30 minutes receive the order and collect it from the Kar-Go vehicle directly whilst the vehicle driver remains in the vehicle for the duration.

During this process, the on-board vehicle systems will be monitored from a control centre and performance metrics will be recorded and analysed. These metrics will consist of delivery specific information such as km travelled and time taken to complete a delivery as well as more high-level recordings taken by the vehicles autonomous driving perception and navigation software which will be evaluated within the final report and further used to develop Kar-Go’s capacity as a fully autonomous vehicle.

Q. What is semi-autonomous driving?

Whilst Kar-Go is designed to be an autonomous vehicle, our focus within the medicine delivery trial is on the success of the arrive and departure procedure and establishing safe no-human-contact delivery within 30 minutes. As such, the vehicle will operate in what is called a semi-autonomous state. In which it will be driven manually by a safety driver whilst the autonomous driving technology will be active to record data and metrics that both determine the measures of success for this trial and allow for future training of the vehicle to be fully autonomous.

This active technology will also function as part of the vehicles ADAS, which are electronic systems that help a vehicle driver whilst they operate a vehicle.