Amazon is testing its Scout delivery robots near its headquarters in Snohomish County, Washington, for a few months. They announced a few days ago that they’re expanding the program, and it’s set to start testing the robots in the Irvine, California, area on a larger scale.
Because they’re starting, Amazon will only have “a small number of Amazon Scout devices,” and will deliver packages on weekdays during daylight hours only. An Amazon employee is going to accompany each Scout robot to keep an eye on things, the robots are autonomously delivering their packages. They’re doing the same with the test they’re doing in Washington, this proves that the company is being successful on this program.
Amazon have declared that the Scout robots will be delivering orders for the customers living in the Irvine area. It is not clear if all the packages are going to be delivered trough a Scout robot, but most of the packages are going to be delivered by a Scout robot.
The Scout robots are being trained for months, they’ve been trained using real-world test and digital simulation of cities. This isn’t the only tool Amazon is using to deliver packages, it is using drones for its Amazon Prime Air service, but both programs are in its early stages.