Robot May Deliver Goods On UA Campus This Fall

University of Arkansas students are becoming fast friends with a robot that researchers hope will make deliveries from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to customers on campus this fall.

A team of UA students, faculty and staff are working with Estonia-based Starship Technologies to test the robot, said Sue Sedberry, managing director of McMillon Family Retail Innovation and Technology Lab.

Model C is being tested on campus to determine its drivability and gauge interaction with students.

“They’re the shoppers of the future,” Sedberry said.

When she learned of the robot at the Consumer Electronics Show, Sedberry proposed to Starship Technologies that it needed to be tested on hilly terrain. And what better place to do so than in the Ozarks?

On April 11, Kätlin Lahtvee, a mechanical engineer with Starship Technologies, arrived from Estonia to assist in the testing.

Lahtvee used a remote, like a Sony PlayStation controller, to operate the robot.

Curious onlookers watched quietly as the robot traveled slowly along the sidewalk in front of the lab. It can travel up to 3 mph, has a range of 2 to 3 miles and operates on a mobile phone network. Its nine cameras prevent it from running into people and objects.

Model E, which is currently in production, might make deliveries from Walmart on Campus, Sedberry said. While Walmart hasn’t agreed to this, “that is an option we are hoping for.”

Meanwhile, testing continues, and Walmart will be interested in the results, said Dan Toporek, a company spokesman.

Existing models cost $2,000 to produce, but the goal is reduce the cost to less than $1,000 each, Sedberry said.