Milton Keynes (United Kingdom) (AFP)
Small robots, elegant white boxes mounted on six wheels, pass each other on the sidewalk in general indifference.
In this residential area of Milton Keynes, 80 kilometers north of London, these automatic delivery people have been part of the landscape for more than three years.
They are now 200 to walk the streets of the city and the neighboring city of Northampton, delivering groceries or meals.
They will soon be 500, colonizing five new municipalities, notably in the region of Cambridge and the north of England.
With the pandemic, robots have been in great demand and have become indispensable: "Everyone needed contactless deliveries," said Andrew Curtis, UK operations manager for Starship Technologies, which builds and operates the machines.
The company, which has quadrupled its deliveries, now makes 1,000 trips a day in the country and "demand has not eased" with the end of restrictions, said Mr. Curtis.
The company has just signed a new agreement with the cooperative supermarket chain Co-op, one of its long-standing partners, to make 300 new robots available by the end of the year and to triple deliveries.
In front of one of the brand's shops in Milton Keynes, the very first to have been served in 2018, a dozen patient robots.
Their antenna, flanked by a small orange flag, for visibility, gives them a false appearance of bumper cars.
- Raspberries, yogurt and bouquet of flowers -
An employee leaves the shop and places the very last order in the hood of one of them: a small bag containing raspberries and yogurt, and a bouquet of flowers.
With his lid locked, the droid immediately rushes out onto the sidewalk.
He forks and walks forward to cross the road, before backing up sharply to let a car pass.
Packed with cameras and sensors, the robot is 99% autonomous, according to its manufacturer, a company created in 2014 by two founders of Skype and based in both Estonia and the United States.
If the PLC stalls in the face of an unknown situation, an operator can take control of it remotely.
An autonomous robot called Starship delivering goods from the local Co-op supermarket in Milton Keynes, England on September 20, 2021 DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS AFP
Once launched, the robot can easily locate itself in the maze of footpaths that meander between the red brick houses and grazes, when the way is clear, 6 km / h.
He delivers to his clients in less than an hour.
For Co-op, the stake is also environmental: it is a question of "reducing carbon emissions on the last kilometers of delivery", by avoiding that "customers do not drive to go to a store, or are not delivered by a gasoline vehicle ", explains the sign in a press release.
The machine remains the property of Starship and orders are made via the application developed by the company, which manages a thousand robots, mainly in the United Kingdom and the United States but also in Estonia, Germany and Denmark.
Starship is not alone in the race for delivery robots.
In the United States for example, where it is mainly established on university campuses, it is playing elbows with start-ups and logistics giants, such as Amazon and FedEx, which are experimenting with delivery robots in limited areas.
- Sharing the sidewalk -
But the robots on wheels are attracting criticism from unions, who fear they will take over the work of humans, and the debate invites itself in American local assemblies, responsible in particular for deciding how far they can travel and responding to concerns about the sharing sidewalks.
"We have never had an accident," insists Andrew Curtis, of Starship, adding that in the United Kingdom, the company has obtained permission from the local authorities for each of its establishments.
In Milton Keynes, the robot continues on its way.
In front of him, works, a gaping hole.
The machine stops, hesitates.
The workers, not impressed, help him to cross with boards and the race resumes, barely slowed down by the bikes which pass him or overtake him.
The white box finally arrives at the end of an alley.
Sheila Rose, 71, comes out of her house leaning on a cane and unlocks the robot with her smartphone, before retrieving the small bag and the flowers.
"If I can use it, anyone can use it," she says.
Sheila, 71, collects her groceries transported to her home by an autonomous robot, called Starship from the local Co-op supermarket in Milton Keynes, England, September 20, 2021 DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS AFP
"Because of my poor health, I sometimes have trouble going out for shopping" and these robots "were a gift from heaven for me, especially during the Covid", says the client who, some weeks, went away. serves every day.
She adds: "I have great grandchildren: they adore them".
© 2021 AFP