Category Archives: Robotics

Owensboro Innovation Academys Robotics team received $2,000 from Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline to help support the team as they head to the national competition in Texas this week.

Team Captains Michael Gray and Luke Austin said that the money will help the team fund more opportunities for the engineering programs and give them the ability to host more tournaments this upcoming season.

It also means we get to buy certain new sensors, all that type jazz for engineering. It means that we are able to work on more projects have more metal for pinball machines that we have, Gray said.

The amount came as a surprise to the team, as they didnt know that they were receiving anything.

Competition season for the team is packed with numerous meets, as they compete nearly every other week.

This season marks the third time the team has qualified for nationals but is just the first time they are able to compete in person.

Its not just a national competition; it is global. This year I think theres a little bit of division on that, but we may be playing with people from Canada, from the places in South America, Gray said. Theres a lot of different opportunities to meet people.

Shawn Patterson, Executive Vice President/COO of Southern Star, said the donation for the robotics team also marks their commitment to supporting youth and STEM programs around Owensboro.

Weve been able to partner with OIA for 4 years now and hopefully helped the team that qualified for nationals to travel down to nationals and bring home another trophy, Patterson said.

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OIA Robotics team receives $2k from Southern Star, going to nationals 3rd straight year - The Owensboro Times

In today's show, Kate chats with Bill Studebaker, president and chief investment officer at ROBO Global ETFs, an index, advisory, and research company focused on fast-growing industries including robotics, artificial intelligence, and healthcare technology.In this interview, Kate and Bill discuss:What is causing robotics and A/I to decline at a faster rate than the broader market?How have current events put tech companies in the eye of the storm?How Bills robo index trades on earnings and is designed that way to weather an economic storm.Why companies in the automation field may bounce back due to large order backlogs? Does this mean certain stocks are mispriced right now?What industries will benefit from increased automation?How did various developments surrounding Covid give a boost to logistics and supply chain automation?Will consumers drive the next round of demand in the supply-chain automation industry?How is health care being transformed by surgical robotics providers?What company in Bills portfolio enables Amazon to track and manage an ever-growing stream of orders?What other company is a leader in the growing area of warehouse management solutions?What does Bill expect to see with earnings among companies in the robo index this year?How should retail investors approach the robotics and automation industry without getting caught up in hype?Stocks mentioned in this interview:Fanuc (FANUY)Teradyne (TER)Intuitive Surgical (ISRG)Zebra Technologies (ZBRA)Manhattan Associates (MANH)

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MarketBeat Podcast: Investing In Innovation, Robotics, AI and Healthcare - Entrepreneur

SARASOTA, Fla. They call themselves the Blackout Robotics Team. Theyre sort of like the Ninja Turtles of engineering at Suncoast Polytechnical High School. They even have a Rafael.

Everybody knows who the four are, were the ones with the robots, everybody talks about us, said Rafael Treminio Bravo.

We all have our niche and we all adapt to what roles need to be completed, said Armand Segui.

Cannon Spencer does the designing, Quinn Coomer does the programming, Rafael does the building and Segui does the driving.

This group of seniors has been building bots together since 6th grade. Spencers living room has been turned into their personal workshop.

Its kind of fun, its like an everlasting sleepover with my best friends, working with robotics, its our favorite thing to do, said Spencer.

They say most of the time working together is a blast, but every once in a while theyll find themselves in a dispute.

Oh yea, definitely without those head butts we wouldnt go anywhere, said Bravo.

What they can all agree on is they want to be the best. Over the years theyve racked up more than 60 awards, including state and national titles.

I dont think I would do it with any other people, I could do it in college as well, but I dont think it will be the same, said Segui.

So this May 5-7 marks their final match together and their most challenging, the VEX World Championship in Dallas, where they will compete against 800 teams from around the world.

Everyone has access to the same parts, but how you use those parts is up to each team. The good news for Blackout Robotics, theyve been preparing for this since middle school.

It would be amazing, its something I dreamed of since I started robotics, wed be fulfilling the legacy of Blackout, it would be a good close on our chapter, said Coomer.

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Sarasota robotics team competes for best in the world - ABC Action News Tampa Bay

Five teams from Tucumcari Diamondback STEM robotics program recently competed at the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics botball tournament in Los Lunas, and all have been invited to the international contest in Oklahoma this summer.

In botball, students design and build robots to accomplish varying challenges during the competition.

Team 806, which consisted of Caden Thomas, MiKayla Klinger and Bryson Klinger, won first place overall and first place in documentation and presentation.

Team 805, consisting of Aaron Chand, Justin Keith, Nolan Ryen and Angela Vasquez, finished second overall and earned the judges choice award because of the design and programming of their robots.

Team 803, consisting of Mesha Powell, Kaylee Brown and Alan Jimenez, won the KISS (or Keep It Simple, Student) Award by accomplishing the most with the fewest parts and least programming.

Representing Tucumcari on two other teams were Sariah Mardo, Rachel Mardo, Mary Ann Avery, David Olguin and Shane Jaggers.

The sponsors of the Tucumcari Diamondback squads are Tommy and Morisa Evans.

All of Tucumcaris teams have been invited to the international contest in Norman, Oklahoma, on July 11-15. They also were invited to a competition at the Air Force Academy in Colorado on May 21.

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Robotics teams do well in tourney - Quay County Sun

Soft, pneumatic actuators might not be a phrase that comes up in daily conversations, but more likely than not you might have benefited from their utility. The devices use compressed air to power motion, and with sensing capabilities, they've proven to be a critical backbone in a variety of applications such as assistive wearables, robotics, and rehabilitative technologies.

But theres a bit of a bottleneck in creating the little dynamic devices that have advantages like high response rates and power to input ratios. They require a manual design and fabrication pipeline, which translates to a lot of trial and error cycles to actually test and see whether the designs will work.

Scientists from MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) devised a scalable pipeline to computationally design and digitally fabricate soft pneumatic actuators, called PneuAct.

Wearable assistive robotics with integrated sensing

PneuAct uses a machine knitting process not dissimilar to your grandma's plastic needle knitting but this machine operates autonomously. A human designer simply specifies the stitch and sensor design patterns in software to program how the actuator will move, and it can then be simulated before printing. The textile piece is fabricated by the knitting machine, which can be fixed to an inexpensive, off-the-shelf rubber silicone tube to complete the actuator.

The knitted actuator integrates conductive yarn for sensing, allowing the actuators to "feel" what they touch. The team cooked up several prototypes spanning an assistive glove, a soft hand, an interactive robot, and a pneumatic walking quadruped. Their devices were wrapped in a soft, yellow fabric that made them look a little bit like banana fingers.

While theres been plenty of movement in the hardware development of soft pneumatic actuators over the years a 2019 prototype of a collaborative robot used such actuators to reproduce human-like gripping in its hands the design tools havent improved with quite as much speed. Old processes have typically used polymers and molding, but the scientists used a combination of elastic and sensing stitches (with conductive yarn) that allows for programming bending of the devices when theyre inflated, and the ability to incorporate real world feedback.

For example, the team used the actuators to build a robot that sensed when it was touched specifically by human hands, and reacted to that touch.

The teams glove can be worn by a human to supplement finger muscle movement, minimizing the amount of muscle activity needed to complete tasks and motions. This could hold a lot of potential for those with injury, limited mobility, or other trauma to the fingers. The method can also be used to make an exoskeleton (wearable robotic units controlled by a computer that supplement human motion and restore locomotion and movement); to that end the researchers made a sleeve that can help wearers bend their elbow, knee, or other body parts.

Digital machine knitting, which is a very common manufacturing method in todays textile industry, enables printing a design in one go, which makes it much more scalable, says Yiyue Luo, MIT CSAIL PhD student and lead author of a new paper about the research. Soft pneumatic actuators are intrinsically compliant and flexible, and combined with intelligent materials, theyve become a necessary force in many robots and assistive technologies and rapid fabrication, with our design tool, can hopefully increase ease and ubiquity.

Making sense of sensors

One type of sensing the team incorporated was called resistive pressure sensing, where the actuator sends pressure. When fabricating a robotic gripper, it would try to grab onto something, and the pressure sensor would sense how much force was being applied to the object, and then it would try to see whether the grasp was successful or not. The other type is capacitive sensing, where the sensor discerns some information on the materials that the actuator is getting in touch with.

The actuators are sturdy no yarn was harmed in the process. One limitation of the system is that they were limited to tube-shaped actuators, because its very easy to buy them off the shelf. A logical next step is exploring actuators of different shapes, to avoid being constrained by that single structure. Another extension the scientists will explore is extending the tool to incorporate a task-driven, optimization-based design, where users can specify target poses and optimal stitch patterns that can be automatically synthesized.

Our software tool is fast, easy to use, and it accurately previews users' designs, allowing them to quickly iterate virtually while only needing to fabricate once. But this process still requires some trial-and-error from humans. Can a computer reason about how textiles should be physically programmed in actuators to allow for rich, sensing-driven behavior? That's the next frontier, says Andrew Spielberg, postdoc in materials science and mechanical engineering at Harvard University, another author on the paper.

Luo wrote the paper alongside Kui Wu, former MIT CSAIL PhD student, Spielberg, MIT postdoc Michael Foshey, and MIT professors Tomas Palacios, Daniela Rus, and Wojciech Matusik. They presented the paper at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

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Soft assistive robotic wearables get a boost from rapid design tool - MIT News

BERKELEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ambi Robotics, the leader in AI-powered robotic parcel sorting systems for supply chain operations, today unveiled its new headquarters in Berkeley, Calif. to support company growth and new product development. Ambi Robotics is ramping up deployments of AmbiSort systems ahead of peak season as more shipping and logistics brands grapple with surging ecommerce demand. The new headquarters boasts 33,000 square feet of space for the company to continue its mission to solve the supply chains most complex problems while helping people handle more than ever before.

Relocating our headquarters back to Berkeley was a logical step in our business growth strategy, says Jim Liefer, CEO of Ambi Robotics. This decision was fueled by the need to accommodate the growth of our company as we remain focused on deployments and supporting the implementation of hundreds of AmbiSort AI-powered robotic sorting systems in production across the US.

The new office location will accommodate the capacity for growing teams in customer support, engineering, AI research, operations, and software development. The new Berkeley headquarters footprint increased over 500% as the team more than quadrupled its size in one year. Ambi Robotics was previously located in a 6,000 square foot office space in Emeryville, Calif.

We are thrilled to be closer to where it all began, just a few miles from the heart of the UC Berkeley campus where our founding team met while pursuing our Ph.D.s,'' says Stephen McKinley, Co-Founder and VP of Operations at Ambi Robotics. Ambi Robotics is built on the power of people - people working together to build extraordinary systems that empower our workforce to handle more. We are building a one-of-a-kind headquarters to foster the growth of our dedicated team and an environment that empowers our team at Ambi Robotics to handle more too.

The newly remodeled headquarters, now re-architected and designed to support the development of advanced supply chain technologies, boasts features that build the human experience for all employees.

At Ambi Robotics, we believe that when people are respected and valued, they become more engaged, says Sandra Kazee, VP of Finance at Ambi Robotics. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment for our team where all employees can be their best, authentic selves.

About Ambi Robotics

Ambi Robotics is an artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics company developing advanced solutions that scale e-commerce operations to meet demand while empowering humans to work smarter. The companys industry-leading AI operating system, AmbiOS, leverages advanced simulation-to-reality technology to operate highly-dexterous robotic systems. Founded in 2018, the world's top roboticists, AI researchers, and leading business professionals work together to build the supply chain's most valued systems. The company is located in Berkeley, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.ambirobotics.com.

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Ambi Robotics Returns to Berkeley and Expands Headquarters, Investing In People and Infrastructure To Support Deployment Growth - Business Wire

The mechanical rodentcan be sent to earthquake ruins or building collapse scenes where debris forms spaces too narrow for rescuers to enter

A team of scientists from the Beijing Institute of Technology has unveiled its contribution to the growing robotics industry; a robotic rat that may one day be used to deliver supplies and communications in an emergency.

The team published its findings on the robotic rodent in the peer-reviewed journal IEEE Transactions on Robotics this month.

Dubbed SQuRo (small-size quadruped robotic rat), the new bot can crouch, walk and crawl over a range of terrains and can carry a load equivalent to 91% of its own body weight. Measuring 7.5 inches in length and weighing 7.8 ounces, the mechanical rodent is powered by solar rechargeable batteries which last 30 minutes, and can be remotely controlled by a computer or phone.

The bot was modeled on a real rats physiology, featuring a long and flexible spine that allows it to fit through narrow spaces. During trials, SQuRo was able to pass through a passage as small as 3.5 inches, cross a 1.1-inch-tall obstacle, and climb up a 15-degree slope.

The robotic rat can be sent to earthquake ruins or building collapse scenes where debris forms spaces that are too narrow for rescuers to enter. It can deliver emergency rations to people trapped under rubble, said lead author Shi Qing, a professor and the vice-director of the intelligent robotics institute at the Beijing Institute of Technology.

It can also navigate complex underground pipeline networks, a key part of smart city development, he added. A larger inspection robot can carry the robotic rat into the network, where it can be deployed to go into smaller pipes for detection tasks.

According to Qing, the team has been developing the prototype since 2019, with estimates suggesting the final product will be ready for commercialization in 2025. X-rays of rats were used to build the model, with the components based on its skeletal structure. The final robot can be assembled from 3D-printed parts in around one week.

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Robotic Rat Created for Search and Rescue Missions - IoT World Today

Plans already have started being discussed about bringing the FIRST Robotics Arkansas Regional back to Searcy next year, according to Tim Westbrook, the Searcy Beats and Eats event coordinator for Tinkerfest, which was held in conjunction with the regional at Harding University at the end of March.

We are already talking about plans for bringing this back next year if we have a proper regional with a larger space and we are in conversations with the Searcy Public School District about that as well, Westbrook said. If all that comes true, wed expect about 40 to 50 teams coming back to Searcy.

The regional held in the Rhodes-Reaves Field House on March 31-April 2 featured 19 teams. Tinkerfest was held April 1 right outside the field house.

Westbrook told the Searcy Advertising and Tourism Promotion Commission, which provided funding for both the regional and Tinkerfest, that most of those who came in for the regional were from out of the town.

We definitely had people coming in buying food and staying in hotels here, he said. We estimated about 1,500 to 2,000 spectators that came in and out of the Rhodes-Reaves Field House over the weekend.

Westbrook said he has been told that there are 12-15 active robotics teams at this level in Arkansas, and seven out of the 12 qualified for the World Championship, so this is a resurgence of STEM and robotics in the state post-COVID and so were excited about what the future holds.

Turning to Tinkerfest, Westbrook said, We estimated about somewhere in the ballpark of 4,000 people that came. We had several food trucks. People that were selling things were satisfied so thats a good indicator for me.

Westbrook said the director of the Arkansas Regional came out and saw what was being done and said, Every year. Every year we need to do this every year. So that was exciting to hear that kind of feedback as well.

Commissioner Rees Jones said he went to both events and it was impressive. He said he didnt grow up doing activities like robotics.

Its just really impressive the number of teams that were there, even 19 teams, Jones said. You are watching them compete and how they do their process is just fascinating, and then Tinkerfest I thought was really good. It was pretty good. The weather was good. It was a little chilly. We had a lot of people out there.

The little experiments that they were doing where people were watching in the audience, it was really, really neat. Its exciting to bring stuff like that to Searcy. This is just another level of service that we can provide.

Jones also said he thought it was really neat that a team came all the way from Mexico to compete in robotics.

Commission Chairman Chris Howell asked about space concerns with the field house, and Westbrook responded, We need more space. We were at capacity and for this to happen annually we need to hold about 50 teams, which would be fair ... if we go over that, that would be great.

Commissioner Jim House asked Westbrook if Searcy had another building big enough for robotics events. Westbrook told him they have been talking with Searcy Superintendent Dr. Bobby Hart about using the new arena being built at Searcy High School. Westbrook said he wasnt sure when the arena will be ready but they would be looking forward to using it. It was also mentioned that the Ganus Activities Center at Harding might be able to be used if bleachers were brought in.

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Return of robotics regional being considered, with more space needed for 40 to 50 teams - Searcy Daily Citizen

Cobalt Robotics, the only company to automate repetitive manual security and facility tasks with an integrated service that unifies state-of-the-art robotics, machine learning software, and expert human oversight, announced, an industry first: enterprise mobile video chat on Cobalts state-of-the-art robotics. Now enterprises can connect staff and visitors with a live employee from their organization or security team first with backup from Cobalts Command Center, through real-time video on the robot wherever the robot is patrolling, in a secure managed solution.

Enterprise mobile video chat enables clients to connect visitors and staff entering their offices, whether its a satellite or launchpad, directly with a receptionist or security officer from the main corporate office via video on the robot for any concerns or questions. If that person is unavailable, they are automatically routed to Cobalts Command Center. With Cobalts integrated robotics service, a large enterprise can now handle reception for dozens of satellite offices via live video calls. Cobalt specialists are available for 24/7 backup from Cobalts SOC2 compliant global security operations center (GSOC). Large enterprises with satellite offices scattered across the country still need to maintain a high level of security, communications, and availability to all staff and visitors as they enter buildings. Cobalts new enterprise mobile video chat makes connections to an organizations headquarters easy and communications more personal for all employees to stay better connected with one another.

Large corporations often require guard posts that need to be staffed all 168 hours/week to protect their personnel and facilities. These posts are hard positions to fill with high turnover rates and costs, and often dont deliver the security services which are intended. This results in large gaps in a security program, particularly on nights and weekends. In addition, much of the security and facility checklists required of guards are repetitive, mundane tasks that can be more efficiently and affordably accomplished by a robot. Cobalts RaaS solution can get an annotated picture of an organizations facility at all inspection points, completing all of the security and facility tasks at a fraction of the cost.

Cobalts autonomous patrolling and 60+ sensors facilitate continuous data collection throughout a facility, providing insight into security, safety, and facility trends over time. Its detailed and customizable Daily Security Reports (DSRs) provide customers with actionable real-time information.

As employers navigate the return to the office, security, uniform access control, and consistent communications for all employees, regardless of location, is paramount, said Mike LeBlanc, Chief Operating Officer of Cobalt Robotics. Cobalt is fulfilling a critical gap for businesses that need round-the-clock security and facility maintenance tasks complete; these are often repetitive, mundane tasks like checking doors and alarms that can be automated, so guards can spend time on jobs that require empathy, judgment, and creativity. Our service also provides more consistent data, historical analysis, and detailed reporting to organizations. We are excited to add new features like enterprise mobile video chat so large enterprises can make communications and access control for a distributed workforce smooth and help employees feel connected as they transition back to physical offices.

State-of-the-Art Robots with over 60+ sensors including day-night cameras, 360-degree cameras, thermal cameras, depth cameras, LIDAR, and badge reading capabilities. Using machine learning, semantic mapping, and novelty detection, the robot can independently identify and flag security-relevant anomalies like people, sounds, motion, doors and windows, and missing assets. Each robot has a screen for communication between remote security specialists and people on-site.

Machine learning software The robot uses machine learning for tasks such as enforcing closed-door policies. For example, Cobalts machine learning algorithm has ingested a sufficient amount of data to accurately identify an open door. When the robot identifies a door that should be closed as being open, the picture is escalated to and confirmed by a security specialist in Cobalts command center as an added layer of redundancy. The incident is then escalated to the customer according to their specified criteria.

In the event of an incident, Cobalts security specialists provide humanitarian assistance for complex situations. They will triage the incident, contact the appropriate personnel and report back to the security team 24/7/365 based on collaboratively established post orders. They can also provide two-way video from the robot to greet employees, request badge credentials, and ensure guest check-in.

Cobalt Robotics is the only company to automate repetitive manual security and facility tasks with an integrated service that unifies state-of-the-art robotics, machine learning software, and expert human oversight. Its technology platform and 24/7 dedicated professional security services team improve safety, security, and facility workflows with greater efficiency and predictability at substantially reduced costs, while allowing guards to focus on tasks that require judgment, empathy, and decision making. Cobalts mobile robotics help companies make their spaces smarter, safer, and more secure, protecting both their employees and intellectual property. Leading enterprises including General Motors and Slack demonstrate that automation in the workplace is a top to bottom priority with Cobalt.

Learn more at cobaltrobotics.com.

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Cobalt Robotics Launches Enterprise Mobile Video Chat for its Automated Robotics Service to Streamline Security and Reception Workflows in the...

Fast-food giants, such as Starbucks, Domino's, and Chipotle, are typically the first movers when it comes to restaurant innovation. Casual-dining chains are often the last to adopt new technologies.

But Chili's is looking to blaze its own trail by pulling the industry's version of a technological hat trick. The 1,200-unit chain is leaning into three robotics and automation technologies: autonomous rovers, drone delivery, and robot food runners and hosts.

"We don't want to be laggards," said Wade Allen, the senior vice president of innovation for Chili's parent company, Brinker International. "We need to be thinking about innovation. We need to be thinking about robotics in the restaurant and making life easier for operators."

The timing is right for Chili's. Food-service robots and drones are taking off as the pandemic and a challenging hiring environment have fueled faster adoption of cost-saving labor and delivery tools. Investors are taking notice, pouring millions into robotics and autonomous logistics startups, such as Coco, Serve Robotics,Bear Robotics, Miso Robotics, and Flytrex.

Allen said he researched various startups and went with drone delivery by Flytrex, self-driving rovers by Serve Robotics, and robot food runners by Bear Robotics. Here's why.

Company: Bear Robotics

Technology: Robot food-service assistants

Job duties: Rita the Robot, a play on the chain's famous margaritas, tackles multiple tasks, such as escorting guests to tables, singing birthday songs, helping servers deliver meals, and busing tables.

Deployment: In 2020, Chili's tested the first robot at one restaurant in Dallas. Six months ago, the chain expanded the pilot to 10 restaurants in California, Texas, and Florida. In April, the company added a Rita the Robot to 51 more restaurants, bringing the total to 61 locations.

Chili's take on the tech: Adding robot food assistants is not a labor-replacing move, Allen said. "Humans matter," he added. But there's a lot of "mundane tasks that go on in the restaurant" that don't necessarily have to be solved by humans, such as delivering dishes or clearing tables.

The Bear Robotics robot zips around the dining room like a Roomba, but with multiple trays for carrying dishes and glasses. It also escorts guests to tables to ensure that hosts never have to leave their station.

Each of the 61 restaurants has one Rita. With "just a few clicks," Allen said, Rita can change roles on the spot.

At the start of a shift, Rita can seat guests, then shift to clearing tables. In between, the robot can add to the "fun and exciting environment" of a Chili's by leading servers in Chili's happy-birthday song, Allen said.

Allen said Brinker went with the SoftBank-backed Bear Robotics because it has a "pretty strong foothold in both Korea and Japan with some of their technology in the casual-dining space." The company has hundreds of robots deployed in restaurants around the world, including Denny's restaurants in the US and Japan.

Company: Flytrex

Technology: Drone delivery

Job duties: Delivering food orders via drone to customers' front and backyards.

Deployment: Flytrex is testing drone deliveries out of two Chili's restaurants in North Carolina and Texas. Delivery is free to customers during beta testing.

Chili's take on the tech: Consumers have grown accustomed to the convenience of delivery, but the fact remains that "third-party delivery is continuing to be expensive" for restaurants, Allen said, referring to costly commission fees charged by operators, such as DoorDash and Uber Eats .

Allen said drones and self-driving robots make sense for the industry as cost-effective alternatives to third-party delivery, whose fees hurt restaurant margins.

Drones, for example, can travel "longer distances more efficiently than a driver of a half-ton vehicle," he said.

Flytrex is one of a handful of logistics companies that have won Federal Aviation Administration approval to pilot drones in the US. Flytrex specifically specializes in food and grocery delivery, having tested its model with Walmart, Starbucks, and El Pollo Loco in North Carolina and California.

Eligible households in North Carolina and Texas can order Chili's food via the Flytrex app. Once orders are placed in the drone, the flight time is about five minutes to someone's home. To keep it simple during beta testing, Brinker is offering drone drops only for its virtual chicken brand, It's Just Wings. Brinker introduced the virtual brand during the pandemic, and it's delivered from more than 1,000 Chili's and Maggiano's Little Italy restaurants, which act like dark kitchens.

"We've delivered thousands of orders between the two restaurants," said Allen, adding that the North Carolina deliveries started in October.

Eventually, Allen said, consumers would be able to order drone deliveries directly from the It's Just Wings app, which is under development. "We started simple. And then we'll scale."

Company: Serve Robotics

Technology: Self-driving robots

Job duties: Food delivery via sidewalk rovers

Deployment: Not yet announced

Chili's take on the tech: Allen said he looked at five rover startups before settling on Serve Robotics. Like Bear Robotics, Allen said he liked that Serve was "further along in their technology" compared to rivals. The California startup has been around for a few years as it was originally the robotics division of Postmates . After Uber bought Postmates in 2020, it spun off Serve, but it remains a key backer of the startup.

Allen said he went with Serve's sidewalk robots because they are fully autonomous, while other rovers are remote-driven. The delivery robots market size is expected to reach $957 million by 2026, up from $212 million in 2021, according to MarketsandMarkets Research.

Neither Serve nor Brinker has disclosed the location or timing of the first deployment.

Allen also didn't disclose the fees associated with rover deliveries. But he said the cost structure would "tend to be cheaper" than third-party food-delivery companies because it is less labor-intensive and more efficient.

He said of autonomous delivery, "That's where I think the world has to go in order to make this a viable solution."

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Chili's Is Testing Drones and Robots to Save on Delivery and Labor - Business Insider