VIDEO: Amazon is actively building an army of self-walking robots to deliver packages

Amazon has started testing a new, fully-electric autonomous delivery system called Amazon Scout. At first, it will deliver packages to customers in a neighbourhood in Snohomish County, Washington. You must be wondering what is Amazon Scout all about, isn't it? Well, let's see what Amazon Scout brings to the table.

What is Amazon Scout?

First things first, Scout is nothing but Amazon's in-house army of fully-electric, autonomous robots that "roll along sidewalks at a walking pace." However, Amazon isn't the only company to experiment with such a delivery system. Starship is developing a small, autonomous delivery vehicle. Another startup Marble is building something similar.

Now, Amazon building sidewalk robots would spice up the competition to some extent, leading to widespread adoption of autonomous delivery vehicles in the not-so-distant future.

Here's the video

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However, these vehicles will initially be accompanied by Amazon employees.

"We’re starting with six Amazon Scout devices, delivering packages Monday through Friday, during daylight hours. The devices will autonomously follow their delivery route but will initially be accompanied by an Amazon employee," said Sean Scott, vice president of Amazon Scout.

"We developed Amazon Scout at our research and development lab in Seattle, ensuring the devices can safely and efficiently navigate around pets, pedestrians and anything else in their path," Scott added.

Amazon's Scout division is actively filling positions for scientists, engineers and managers across different fields such as robotics, navigation, computer vision, software development, graphics, safety and more.