Vayu debuts world’s first on-road delivery robot

Vayu Robotics wins large commercial contract; first-in-kind robot combines AI models with low-cost sensing

Vayu debuts world’s first on-road delivery robot
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In a move to slash the cost of e-commerce deliveries, Vayu Robotics has announced the release of the world’s first on-road delivery robot that combines the power of modern AI foundation models with lidar-less, low-cost passive sensors.

Traditional mobile robotics rely on costly lidar sensors and software modules built to do one task at a time, leading to expensive hardware and fragile software unable to handle new scenarios, says a release from Vayu.

"Vayu’s robot does the opposite. The company has combined a transformer-based mobility foundation model with a powerful passive sensor that, together, eliminates the need for lidar. As a result, Vayu’s delivery robot operates autonomously without pre-mapping the roads it intends to drive on and is capable of navigating inside stores, on city streets, and unloading packages on driveways or porches, carrying up to 100 lbs at under 20mph. This model is the first-of-its-kind, offering the most cost-effective, safe, reliable delivery system on the market."

(From left): Mahesh Krishnamurthi, Nitish Srivastava and Anand Gopalan

Vayu was co-founded by three veterans from the robotics and mobility industry - Anand Gopalan, former CEO who took the world’s leading lidar supplier Velodyne public in 2020, Mahesh Krishnamurthi, formerly Apple SPG and Lyft, and Nitish Srivastava, also from Apple SPG and Geoffrey Hinton’s renowned AI lab in the University of Toronto. Hinton is also an advisor to the company.

“The unique set of technologies we have developed at Vayu have allowed us to solve problems that have plagued delivery robots over the past decade, and finally create a solution that can actually be deployed at scale and enable the cheap transport of goods everywhere” says Anand Gopalan, CEO, Vayu Robotics.

The company recently signed a commercial agreement with a large e-commerce player to deploy 2,500 robots to enable ultra-fast goods delivery with similar commercial customers in the pipeline, the release added. The team is also working with a leading global robotics manufacturer to replace lidar sensors with Vayu’s sensing technology for other robotic applications.

Vayu has raised $12.7 million to fuel its mission to remove the hardware and software bottlenecks that have stunted the growth of e-commerce, the release added.

“At Khosla Ventures, we believe in backing businesses where critical and differentiated technologies can unlock a large market. Vayu is a great example of this where they have deployed novel sensing and their AI foundation models to a robotic challenge that can have immense economic and societal impact” says Kanu Gulati, Partner, Khosla Ventures.

Gopalan adds: “Our software is robot form factor agnostic and we have already deployed it across several wheeled form factors.In the near future, Vayu's software technology will enable the movement of quadrupedal and bipedal robots, allowing us to expand into those markets as well.” Autonomous delivery robots are only the tip of the iceberg."

(Photos & Video Credit: Vayu)

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