Yandex Self-Driving Group, the Yandex spin-off dedicated to unmanned vehicles, has teamed up with Grubhub to develop driverless food deliveries on college campuses in the United States. Partnering with more than 250 college campuses, Grubhub is a major online and mobile food-ordering and delivery platform in the US.
The Russian company and its new US partner say these robotized deliveries will be rolled out “later this fall on select campuses.” The service will be “fully integrated into the Grubhub app.”
“As we looked for a robot delivery partner, we recognized that we not only needed best-in-class technology, but the resources and scale to meet the unique demands of our campus clients,” stated Sean Ir, director of strategic partnerships at Grubhub. “Yandex was the clear choice, and together we will serve colleges and universities across the country better than ever before.”
“We’re excited to offer these cost-effective, scalable and quick food ordering and delivery capabilities to colleges and universities across the country that are looking to adapt to students’ unique dining needs,” said Grubhub VP Brian Madigan.
“While college campuses are notoriously difficult for cars to navigate, specifically as it relates to food delivery, Yandex robots easily access parts of campuses that vehicles cannot — effectively removing a major hurdle universities face when implementing new technology,” he added.
Food deliveries amid the snow
Experimented since last year, Yandex’s robots deliver small and medium-sized packages typically from shops and restaurants. Dubbed ‘Yandex.Rover,’ these engines can navigate pavements, pedestrian areas and crosswalks, and reach certain areas that are not accessible by car. They can operate both in daylight and at night in a various weather conditions — including “moderate snowfall and rain,” according to the company.
Commercial operations began in Russia in late 2020. Since then, according to the company, “thousands of orders from restaurants and grocery stores” have been delivered, in connection with Yandex’s food delivery and grocery delivery platforms (Yandex.Eats and Yandex.Lavka, respectively).
The company aims to deploy its technology in different markets across the globe. The first experiment abroad took place this past April in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Unmanned cars since 2017
Yandex is best known for its unmanned cars, which were launched in 2017. In-house Yandex technologies are used, from mapping, to real-time navigation, to computer vision and object recognition.
Proprietary computing algorithms, artificial intelligence and machine learning “ensure the vehicle’s ability to ‘make decisions’ in complex environments, such as busy city traffic,” the company explained at that time.
Since 2017, these unmanned vehicles have been experimented in variety of climatic and traffic conditions in Moscow and Innopolis (Russia) as well as Tel Aviv (Israel), Las Vegas and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Yandex Self-Driving Group claims to operate a fleet of 170 unmanned cars as of today.
