Fedex is investing in autonomous trucks, and is interested in delivery robots and an Alexa app
by noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) from NextBigFuture.com on (#2BEDD)
Your FedEx package might someday be delivered by a robot.
Rob Carter, FedEx's chief information officer, says the shipping giant is considering small vehicles that could drive around neighborhoods and make deliveries without human drivers.
Carter is responsible for setting the technology agenda across FedEx's various operating companies, including its planes-and-trucks Express shipping service and office-and-home Ground delivery service, which operate in 220 countries.
The investments FedEx makes in AI and robotics technologies could shape the multi-trillion-dollar logistics market, affecting everything from the way people send and receive parcels to the global movement of large fleets of vehicles.
Fedex is working with the startup Peloton Technology, whose semi-autonomous technology electronically links trucks into small caravan groups called platoons. The system, which uses wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communication to enable the driver of a lead truck to control the gas and brakes of a truck following closely behind him, is designed to reduce wind resistance and save fuel. The technology is considered a significant step toward fully autonomous trucks, and Peloton has said it will release it in late 2017.
Carter says FedEx is also "very much interested in" completely autonomous trucking and has partnered with several automakers that specialize in that technology, including Daimler and its Freightliner truck division and Volvo. Daimler has piloted semi-autonomous trucks on highways in Nevada and Germany while Volvo recently demonstrated a fully autonomous construction truck in an underground Swedish mine. Carter says he expects to see "significant implementations" of automated vehicles in the shipping industry within 10 years, but declined to specify when FedEx might adopt semi- or fully autonomous trucks.
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Rob Carter, FedEx's chief information officer, says the shipping giant is considering small vehicles that could drive around neighborhoods and make deliveries without human drivers.
Carter is responsible for setting the technology agenda across FedEx's various operating companies, including its planes-and-trucks Express shipping service and office-and-home Ground delivery service, which operate in 220 countries.
The investments FedEx makes in AI and robotics technologies could shape the multi-trillion-dollar logistics market, affecting everything from the way people send and receive parcels to the global movement of large fleets of vehicles.
Fedex is working with the startup Peloton Technology, whose semi-autonomous technology electronically links trucks into small caravan groups called platoons. The system, which uses wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communication to enable the driver of a lead truck to control the gas and brakes of a truck following closely behind him, is designed to reduce wind resistance and save fuel. The technology is considered a significant step toward fully autonomous trucks, and Peloton has said it will release it in late 2017.
Carter says FedEx is also "very much interested in" completely autonomous trucking and has partnered with several automakers that specialize in that technology, including Daimler and its Freightliner truck division and Volvo. Daimler has piloted semi-autonomous trucks on highways in Nevada and Germany while Volvo recently demonstrated a fully autonomous construction truck in an underground Swedish mine. Carter says he expects to see "significant implementations" of automated vehicles in the shipping industry within 10 years, but declined to specify when FedEx might adopt semi- or fully autonomous trucks.
Read more