DoorDash said it plans to expand Dot alongside its strategic autonomous partnerships. | Source: DoorDash
Today, DoorDash unveiled Dot, its first autonomous delivery robot. The company said it built Dot to travel on bike lanes, roads, sidewalks, and driveways to perform local deliveries.
At one-tenth the size of a car, DoorDash designed Dot for quick deliveries. The robot can travel up to 20 mph (32.1 kph), making it suitable for neighborhood trips to help local businesses meet growing consumer demand. The San Francisco-based company said the electric robot is small enough to reduce congestion and agile enough for smooth handoffs.
“You don’t always need a full-sized car to deliver a tube of toothpaste or pack of diapers. That’s the insight behind Dot,” said Stanley Tang, co-founder and head of DoorDash Labs. “The breakthrough wasn’t just making it autonomous, but in making it reliable and efficient to serve the needs of local businesses and consumers.”
“Dot is purpose-built for the millions of deliveries we facilitate every day,” he added. “It is small enough to navigate doorways and driveways, fast enough to maintain food quality, and smart enough to optimize the best routes for delivery. Every design decision, from its compact size to its speed to the sensor suite, came from analyzing billions of deliveries on our global platform and understanding what actually moves the needle for merchants and consumers.”
Dot’s first deployments will be with DoorDash’s early-access program in Tempe and Mesa, Ariz. It said this initial deployment will pave the way for expansion into multiple markets.
DoorDash robot years in the making
DoorDash has been developing its autonomous delivery robot for at least six years now. In 2019, it filed two patents for an autonomous delivery vehicle. These patents were approved and made made public in 2021.
The company noted the unique challenges that come with food delivery. While people expect to meet a robotaxi at the curb, delivery robots must bring food right to customers’ doors. And on the merchant side, the robot needs to figure out where each merchant wants to hand off food.
DoorDash said it designed Dot to fulfill three criteria:
- A robot design whose size, speed, and form factor could be applied to many current DoorDash delivery types
- Driving software that can navigate roads, bike lanes, and sidewalks fully autonomously
- A design and tech stack that’s efficient and scalable
Dot can fit up to six large pizza boxes and carry up to 30 lb. (13.6 kg) of cargo. At 4 ft. 6 in. (137.1 cm) tall, the company claimed that Dot is visible to road users but small enough to fit through most doors.
The robot’s perception stack primarily relies on vision, with eight external cameras providing 360-degree coverage, plus one interior camera to ensure delivery quality, supported by four inexpensive radar units.
DoorDash included three high-resolution lidar sensors for situational awareness. However, the company plans to replace these with inexpensive automotive-grade lidars for a low-cost sensor stack to enable rapid commercial scale.
Dot has autonomy to handle roads, sidewalks, and bike lanes
DoorDash said Dot will help fill in on local trips, creating a more efficient delivery network overall. | Source: DoorDash
Dot is designed to handle busy parking lots, streets, bike lanes, sidewalks, driveways, and paths to enable smooth merchant handoffs and the kinds of deliveries that already take place on DoorDash’s platform every day.
The company said its technology stack combines deep learning and search-based algorithms to find a smooth path for deliveries.
The robot is also equipped with deep learning to understand how other road users act and how it should drive in complex situations. The search acts as a safety net and ensures that Dot navigates the environment safely, smoothly, and predictably, DoorDash said.
The company added that it trains with behavior cloning and reinforcement learning on large, diverse data so the system keeps improving with real-world experience.
DoorDash tested the robot against a range of edge cases in diverse suburban environments. These include construction zones with temporary signage, trucks blocking bike lanes, pedestrians in low light conditions, animals off-leash in residential areas, broken traffic lights, school zones, and more.
Dot is also optimized for operational safety. Its front and rear drive modules can be individually swapped and replaced for service or other operational needs, and its fully modular design allows different customized cargos for different delivery use cases such as pizza or groceries.
What does this mean for other delivery robots?
A number of robotics companies are developing sidewalk delivery robots. Undoubtedly, DoorDash is one of the biggest potential customers for these developers.
Already, DoorDash works with Wing for drone deliveries and Coco Robotics for sidewalk deliveries. The company says it’s building an autonomous delivery platform (ADP) on top of its existing infrastructure to better orchestrate deliveries. This includes deciding whether it’s best to use a human dasher, a Wing drone, a Coco sidewalk robot, or Dot.
In addition, DoorDash claimed that Dot is a faster autonomous system than other sidewalk delivery robots. The company said it plans to continue working with its partners on optimizing deliveries.
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