Dive Brief:
- Kiwibot is launching 25 automated delivery robots with self-driving capacity on the campus of Loyola Marymount University, the company said Monday in an email to Restaurant Dive.
- The robots will deliver from various retail options on campus, including Qdoba, Iggy’s Cafe and The Grid, a set of c-stores on Loyola Marymount’s campus.
- Kiwibot continues to build its reach across college campuses. The company partnered with Grubhub last week and Sodexo earlier this year to bring more than 1,200 delivery bots to 50 U.S. campuses.
Dive Insight:
As part of Kiwibot’s ongoing relationship with Sodexo, students, faculty and staff will be able to order food from Everyday, Sodexo’s mobile app. Robots will deliver the orders to select drop-off locations on campus, the company wrote in an email to Restaurant Dive.
Kiwibots use satellite-powered GPS technology to improve location accuracy for the self-driving robots. The bots will use data from camera sensors, as well as artificial intelligence, to avoid obstacles. A navigation system provides the bots with multiple routes to a location that they can select from. This autonomy is expected to reduce wait times for food deliveries, according to the press release. Kiwibot also works with NVIDIA, which provides Kiwibot with additional computing power.
Autonomous delivery is becoming an increasingly common way to provide students with affordable delivery options at college campuses. College campuses provide excellent testing grounds for bots, since they generally feature structured routes and may not require the same level of regulatory compliance as municipalities. In addition to Grubhub’s Kiwibot partnership, the food delivery company has been expanding its partnerships with bots, also partnering with Cartken and Starship this year.
Some cities have allowed bot tests, including Chicago, which launched a pilot program earlier this year for bot food delivery. Uber Eats is testing Serve Robotics and Motional in Los Angeles.
