Woowa Brothers starts outdoor robot delivery service
Baedal Minjok's robots, developed by Woowa Brothers, stand in the front yard of Gwanggyo Alley Way, a multipurpose housing complex in Gwanggyo, Gyeonggi Province, on Aug. 18. / Courtesy of Woowa Brothers
By Kim Jae-heun
A service that allows delivery robots to move around outdoors between restaurants and apartments to deliver food has become a reality in Korea.
Woowa Brothers, operator of the country's No. 1 food delivery service player Baedal Minjok (Baemin), said last month that the company has started a service using self-driving outdoor delivery robots - “Dilly Drive” - at the multipurpose housing complex Gwanggyo Alley Way in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province.
It is available for residents and visitors.
The residents of the complex, who number 1,100, can choose an item from a menu and place orders with the restaurants and coffee shops in the apartment complex just by opening their Baemin application and scanning a QR code.
Orders can also be made from outdoor tables at restaurants the same way.
When an order is placed, the robot goes to the restaurant. A staff member then places the food in the Dilly Drive's container and presses the “go” button. The robot then drives to the destination.
Customers can check the location of their order via the Baemin application and get a notification 100 meters before its arrival. Customers can receive the food on the first floor of the building or at a designated outdoor table of the restaurant.
The Dilly Drive has evolved with a newly added remote control function absent from the previous model used at Konkuk University in Seoul.
The robot, which has six wheels, runs at up to 5 kilometers per hour, which is the average walking speed.
It can operate for more than eight hours on one charge and has headlights for night delivery. The Dilly Drive can carry about six lunch boxes or 12 beverages at once.
Woowa Brothers has prepared measures to guarantee the safety of the Dilly Drive.
It has examined road conditions and where people move around the complex. The Dilly Drives travels more slowly in areas people frequent.
There is a video surveillance system installed at the Gwanggyo Alley Way to monitor Dilly Drives and control them in real time, particularly at crosswalks where there are a lot of cars.
For the first month of service, Dilly Drives will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays. Woowa Brothers will extend the hours gradually.
There is a higher technological barrier for outdoor self-driving robots than for indoor robots.
Outdoor robots have to detect the subtle movements of not only cars and bicycles but also children and pets. They can only be commercialized when they operate stably even on bumpy roads and under varying weather conditions.
“Outdoor delivery robot service includes a lot more obstacles that interrupt the robot's directive, such as the road surface, obstacles, the weather, unexpected events and so on,” said Joseph Kim, head of Robot Business Development at Woowa Brothers. “It can only be commercialized when sophisticated technology and service know-how come together. Woowa Brothers will continue the development of the delivery robot service for the advanced delivery ecosystem.”