Yeehaw: Ikea Is Testing Autonomous Delivery in Texas

Ikea is entering into the longer term: The Swedish furnishings retail large is testing out autonomous supply autos in Texas with assist from Kodiak Robotics.

Ikea has tapped Kodiak Robotics, a California-based robotics firm specializing in autonomous freight autos like supply vans, for assistance on a brand new pilot program to check autonomous supply to Ikea shops. Per Kodiak, the corporate and Ikea have been in cooperation with one another since August 8 of this 12 months. This pilot program will characteristic a Kodiak truck transporting merchandise between an Ikea warehouse in Baytown, Texas to an Ikea retailer in Frisco—a distance of practically 300 miles.

“Kodiak’s technology will contribute towards our objective to put the driver in focus in the transition towards automated transportation and towards our road safety agenda,” stated Dariusz Mroczek in a press release. Mroczek is the Category Area Transport Manager of IKEA Supply Chain Operations.

The caveat right here is that these vans are usually not utterly autonomous, as a “professional safety driver” might be located behind the wheel throughout transit. Kodiak claims on their website that their vans are among the most superior autonomous freight autos within the trade. Their vans depend on the aptly “Kodiak vision,” which is a mixture of cameras, LIDAR, and RADAR that the truck’s laptop can use to generate an in-depth understanding of the street round it. Likewise, every truck can replace a cloud-based mostly map in real-time, signalling the remainder of the fleet of any obstacles or updates that will seem all through transit.

“IKEA and Kodiak share a commitment to putting safety first,” stated Kodiak Robotics founder and CEO Don Burnette. “Together we are able to improve security, enhance working circumstances for drivers, and create a extra sustainable freight transportation system.

Kodiak says that this pilot program is principally to evaluate the protection and effectivity of autonomous supply autos in a real-world utility. Ikea didn’t instantly reply to Gizmodo’s request for touch upon how this pilot program might broaden.