Postmates’ Serve robot is to begin making deliveries in Los Angeles.
Postmates and Ouster
Postmates is equipping the latest version of its Serve urban-delivery robots with laser lidar sensors from Ouster to help ensure they avoid bumping into pedestrians and safely navigate sidewalk hazards while making their rounds.
San Francisco-based Ouster is supplying the 64-laser beam version of its OS1 sensor—which sells for $12,000—to the help app-based delivery company get the robots running later this year, initially in Los Angeles. Ouster didn’t specify how many units it’s selling to Postmates or provide financial details of the deal. Postmates previously tested units from Velodyne, the leading lidar supplier, on its first-generation robot, according to Ouster.
“Serve is exactly the kind of application that benefits from the OS1 lidar’s small, lightweight, durable and power-efficient design,” said Angus Pacala, Ouster’s cofounder and CEO.
The ability of lidar, an acronym for light detection and ranging, to rapidly generate 3D point cloud maps in daylight or at night by bouncing laser beams off its surroundings has made the sensor a core technology for self-driving vehicles. Increasingly, it’s also used for drones, security systems and a range of robots, sparking fierce competition for business among well-established makers such as Velodyne, startups like Ouster, Luminar and Innoviz, and even self-driving tech firm Waymo.
Postmates’ Socially-Aware-Navigation system pilots the shopping-cart-size Serve units. The Los Angeles launch is a “commercial scale” deployment, the companies said without elaborating.
“Over the past few years of development, it has become clear that lidar is an integral component to both detecting and interacting with the world around Serve, and Ouster is bridging that connection,” said Ali Kashani, Postmates’ vice president of special projects.
