Coco Robotics, a startup famous for its futuristic last-mile delivery robots, has big announcements! In conjunction with this announcement, they are starting a new research lab to continue pushing the boundaries of physical AI. Founded in 2020, the company has gathered five years’ worth of operational data from its delivery bots, which have been navigating urban environments with the aid of teleoperators since their inception.
The new study is designed to improve the speed, environmental friendliness and safety of these autonomous delivery systems. The lab’s primary focus is in areas of computer vision and robotics, with a strong emphasis in the areas of micromobility. Its long-term aim is to troubleshoot and remediate the barriers and infrastructure flaws that hinder the bots’ efficiency. Zhou, a leader in the development of robots that can navigate autonomously and learn through experience via reinforcement learning, will lead this effort.
Coco Robotics powerfully believes that continued improvement of technology is the key. It aims to make a broader positive impact on the community at large. The company intends to make its research findings available to the cities in which it operates, where applicable. Better understanding these needs, opportunities, and the short-term and long-term consequences requires close collaboration among public and private stakeholders.
That key partnership between Coco Robotics and OpenAI is what makes this endeavor possible. This partnership will give Coco Robotics access to OpenAI’s state-of-the-art models, while giving OpenAI access to Coco Robotics’s large dataset collected by its robots. Its owners at Coco Robotics have publicly vowed to never sell this data to their competitors. Instead, the question turns to how this information can be used to improve operations internally and serve the community overall.
Rash, a co-founder of Coco Robotics, emphasized the value of the data they’ve collected. It’s derived from millions of miles driven in challenging city settings.
“We have millions of miles of data collected in the most complicated urban settings possible, and that data is incredibly important for training any sort of useful and reliable real-world AI systems,” – Rash.
The startup’s aspirations extend beyond technical enhancements. Rash pointed out that the key to success for the new federal lab would be offering a much better service at a superbly low cost.
“Success for this lab really looks at us offering a higher-quality service at an extremely low price,” – Rash.
The creation of this new research lab is only the latest step in Coco Robotics’ long-standing commitment to innovation. The company’s interest in working with academia was recently demonstrated when it donated one of its delivery bots to UCLA’s mobility research lab. This gesture is a commitment to more collaboration and exploration among AI and robotics.
Rash and Brad Squicciarini were co-founders of Coco Robotics together. As fellows from UCLA, they continue to strengthen their deep connections to the university and its dynamic creative and scholarly community.
Coco Robotics is pursuing its vision to improve last-mile delivery solutions with visual artificial intelligence and deep machine learning. This places the company as leaders in technological innovation in urban logistics. Zhou is at the helm of a new wave of innovation to change how delivery robots traverse and respond to their environments. The joint company’s project priorities include improving service and maintaining affordability for customers.