Autonomous delivery robots at center of bomb scare ‘prank’

A Starship Technologies robot on a delivery run. Customers place an order via an app and the robot delivers it inside a secure compartment. Starship Technologies

A bomb threat involving wheel-based delivery robots at an Oregon State University campus has turned out to be a prank following the reported arrest of a suspect.

Officials at the campus in Corvallis, about 70 miles southwest of Portland, sent out an urgent message on Tuesday telling students to keep away from the Starship robots, which deliver food orders to students and staff across the site.

“Do not open robots,” the social media post said. “Avoid all robots until further notice.”

Urgent OSU Alert: Bomb Threat in Starship food delivery robots. Do not open robots. Avoid all robots until further notice. Public Safety is responding.

— Oregon State University (@OregonState) October 24, 2023

The alert was in response to a threat from a person suggesting that explosives had been placed inside one of the autonomous robots, according to the Associated Press.

About an hour after the alert, the university confirmed that the robots had been taken to an isolated spot where inspections were taking place. A short while later, the incident was declared over after checks found nothing suspicious inside the machines.

A suspect was later arrested, though officials have so far declined to reveal if the person has any close connection with the campus or wider university.

However, Starship Technologies said in a statement that the bomb threat had been sent via social media by an Oregon State University student who claimed it’d been done as a joke.

“A student at Oregon State University sent a bomb threat, via social media, that involved Starship’s robots on the campus,” the statement said, adding: “While the student has subsequently stated this is a joke and a prank, Starship suspended the service. Safety is of the utmost importance to Starship and we are cooperating with law enforcement and the university during this investigation.”

Around 75 Starship robots have been delivering food to people on Oregon State University campuses for the last three years, and in May the company announced its global fleet had made around 5 million deliveries since its launch in 2014.

A number of firms have been developing similar autonomous delivery robots, including Serve Robotics, which recently expanded its tie-up with Uber Eats to deploy more than 2,000 robots at sites across the U.S. and Canada over the next year.

Editors’ Recommendations

Thousands of delivery robots to join Uber Eats

Nuro’s new autonomous delivery pod has an external airbag

Tiny insect-inspired robot has speed of a cockroach and agility of a cheetah

Bosch is helping autonomous robots find electric charging stations on the moon

Terrifying Monster Wolf robot aims to scare off bears

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Amazon’s Scout delivery bots are rolling out in two new cities

Amazon Scout, the e-commerce giant’s fully-electric autonomous delivery robots, are heading south. To Atlanta, Georgia, and Franklin, Tennessee, specifically. Announced Tuesday in a blog post from Amazon Scout VP Sean Scott, Amazon says that it is set to start delivering to select customers in these markets as part of the company’s continuing “field test” rollout. It has also been delivering packages in Snohomish County, Washington, and the Irvine-area of California.

“We’re thrilled to bring Amazon Scout to two new communities,” Scott writes. “Adding Atlanta and Franklin to our existing operations gives Scout devices the opportunity to operate in varied neighborhoods with different climates than they operate in today. Amazon also has a significant presence in these areas through our corporate offices and logistics facilities. And, we know they are both great places to find world-class talent that can help us continue inventing for customers.”

A flock of bionic birds and an autonomous robot arm are Festo’s latest creations

If you thought that robot dog creators Boston Dynamics had the market cornered when it comes to attention-grabbing, natural world-inspired robots, you clearly haven’t heard of Festo. For the past several years, Festo — a Germany-based multinational industrial control and automation company — has been moonlighting as the creator of some of the craziest robots around, from bionic flying foxes to robot jellyfish to robotic spiders that resemble a Star Wars battle droid.

This month it unleashed its two latest creations: BionicSwift, a flock of flying robot birds, and BionicMobileAssistant, a human arm-inspired robot gripper on wheels. And they’re both awesomely impressive in their own way.

Drone deliveries may consume 10 times as much energy as van deliveries in cities

Drone-based deliveries have been promised for years now, and are just now starting to (no pun intended) get off the ground. There are plenty of reasons to be excited at the prospect of flying robots bringing your latest online delivery, but one that is frequently mentioned is the idea that drones will remove a certain number of delivery vehicles from the road, leading to a positive environmental impact.

Not so fast, claims a recent study carried out by a researcher at Martin Luther Universitat in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. Having run the numbers, Thomas Kirschstein, from MLU’s department of Production and Logistics, thinks drone deliveries could actually wind up consuming a whole lot more energy than alternative vehicular options, especially in dense urban areas. Kirschstein’s simulations suggest that drones could use around 10 times as much energy as electric vans, and significantly more than diesel vans (which use twice the energy of electric vans).

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Digital Trends – https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/autonomous-delivery-robots-at-center-of-bomb-scare-prank/