Vayu, a robotics and artificial intelligence company, has introduced the One, a new delivery robot that can go up to 20 mph through stores and streets on its own. Additionally, the business received its first order for a sizable number of robots to be used in commercial operations.
In order to contribute to a more sustainable and connected society, Vayu Robotics is a group of engineers and business professionals that are focused on bringing next-generation AI technologies to the autonomous delivery space.
The Sanskrit term “Vayu” signifies “the intelligence that enables all motion in the universe and all movement of energy,” according to the corporate website. The trio of founders of the firm formerly held roles at Velodyne, Apple, and Lyft, before coming together to pool their decades of experience.
The startup had raised $12.7 million to develop its low-cost “robotics nervous system,” central to the new autonomous delivery robot it officially unveiled earlier today.
According to a release from Vayu Robotics, it took the opposite design approach to many of its competitors in the autonomous delivery space today. Rather than relying on expensive LiDAR sensors and software modules that are only capable of one task at a time, the Vayu team combined a transformer-based mobility foundation model with a passive sensor, alleviating the need for LiDAR altogether.
The result is a new autonomous delivery robot called the Vayu One that can operate without pre-mapping roads while safely navigating inside stores, streets, sidewalks, and driveways. The miniature autonomous vessel seen above can transport up to 100 pounds of cargo at speeds up to 20 mph.
As a result, Vayu has declared its delivery robot the “first-of-its-kind” for on-road transport. We’d argue there aren’t many roads that will want a tiny robot that only goes 20 mph, but it is an achievement in the space nonetheless.
Per Vayu CEO Anand Gopalan:
The unique set of technologies we have developed at Vayu have allowed us to solve problems that have plagued delivery robots over the past decade, and finally create a solution that can actually be deployed at scale and enable the cheap transport of goods everywhere.
Following today’s public debut, Vayu shared its delivery robots are ready for commercial deployment and that it has already secured an order for 2,500 units from “a large e-commerce player.”
Looking ahead, Vayu says it is already working with a leading global robotics manufacturer to replace its LiDAR sensors with its sensing technology to support other robotic applications beyond autonomous deliveries and plans to adapt the technology to support different methods of transport in the future.
Gopalan elaborated: Our software is robot form factor agnostic and we have already deployed it across several wheeled form factors. In the near future, Vayu’s software technology will enable the movement of quadrupedal and bipedal robots, allowing us to expand into those markets as well.
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