When Robots Take to City Sidewalks
Startups in San Francisco and elsewhere are testing machines that carry your stuff from here to there
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SAN FRANCISCO—On a sunny day here in the residential Potrero Hill neighborhood, a 3-foot-tall robot named Scrappy went out for a stroll.
Box-shaped, mounted on four rubber wheels and outfitted with a high-tech array of sensors and cameras, Scrappy is part of a team of robots surveying the sidewalk landscape for Marble, a robotics startup here. For now, the robots are taking their walks with Marble executives or employees. Within a year, the company aims to have the majority of San Francisco’s sidewalks three-dimensionally mapped—allowing its small fleet to autonomously navigate the city, carrying everything from groceries to takeout, dry-cleaning and prescriptions to and from homes and businesses.
As Scrappy rolled around Jackson Playground, most of the park’s patrons and passersby—human and canine—ignored the humble robot. But Kathy Piziali was intrigued.
“We’ve never run into a real robot before,” said Ms. Piziali, who was taking her 3-year-old grandson to the playground.
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Like sidewalk pets isn't enough...