DoorDash is building its own delivery robots

In November 2021, DoorDash unveiled DoorDash Labs, its robotics and automation division, which has been operating since 2018. Since 2017, DoorDash has tested last-mile delivery with a number of robotics companies, including Cruise, Marble and Starship Technologies. 

However, none of these solutions appear to have caught on for the company. The food delivery giant seems to be developing its own autonomous delivery robots.

DoorDash has not publicly disclosed any details about its delivery robots, but it has filed several relevant patents with the US Patent and Trademark Office. In May 2019, the company filed two patents for an autonomous delivery vehicle. The patents were granted in September and October 2021 and include schematics of an autonomous delivery robot.

The company told The Robot Report that patents are not necessarily an indicator of what is actually in development. While the robots DoorDash eventually publicly unveils may look and work differently, the patents and diagrams at least give us an idea of what the company has in mind.

"The goal of DoorDash Labs is to develop and deploy robotics solutions that complement the Dasher community, improve the efficiency of our network as a whole, and lead to more efficient and convenient experiences for all of the audiences DoorDash serves. We aim to work closely with safety experts and stakeholders from regulatory bodies to implement best practices as we explore in-house automation technology development," a company representative said in an email statement. 

The patents do not reveal much about the robot's specifications. In one patent, DoorDash describes an autonomous vehicle that can carry two to three 56-centimeter pizza boxes. DoorDash uses the phrase "various options," meaning the size and storage capacity could differ in the future. According to the patent, the vehicle can travel on sidewalks, pedestrian paths, bike lanes and driveways in residential areas. The device is capable of reaching speeds of 29 to 40 km/h and weighs between 90 and 136 kg.

In one of the patents, the company stated that its robot may have a sensor that extends upward from the body of the device at a height of 0.91 to 1.5 m. DoorDash has filed patents for various other components of the autonomous delivery vehicle, including a virtual vehicle control system and a sensor suite for an automated delivery device.

For comparison, Starship's delivery robots are 57 cm tall, weigh 25 kg and can carry up to 14 kg. The R2 delivery vehicle from Nuro is much larger than Starship's robots and offers a payload capacity of 190 kg and a top speed of 40 km/h.

DoorDash has also hired Asha Ridge as the new vice president of autonomy at DoorDash Labs. Ridge spent six years at Zoox, an autonomous vehicle company. At Zoox, he spent three years as senior vice president of software development. The company was founded in 2014 and was acquired by Amazon in 2020 for $1.2 billion.

In its DoorDash Labs announcement, the company said it "identified a gap in existing automation applications" and aims to fill it with its own technology. The company said it is looking for a scalable solution fully integrated with its system.

Many autonomous delivery robots use a last-mile delivery system, where the device picks up an order from a location between the seller and the buyer and then delivers the food to the buyer. DoorDash aims to automate the middle mile of its deliveries using a "hub-to-hub" model. In this model, orders would be aggregated in areas with many sellers, such as a shopping center, and a robot would deliver the order to a hub located closer to buyers. A human "Dasher" would then pick up orders from the "hub" and deliver them to the customer.

DoorDash is no newcomer to delivery robots or autonomous vehicles. The company has been testing various robots since 2017, when it first partnered with Starship Technologies. Later in 2017, DoorDash entered a partnership with Marble Robot to begin testing robot delivery in San Francisco. In addition, in 2019 the food delivery giant, in partnership with Cruise, tested the ability of autonomous cars to deliver orders in San Francisco.

In August 2019, DoorDash acquired Scotty Labs, a remote operations company working on technology that would allow people to remotely operate autonomous vehicles.

In February 2021, the company acquired Chowbotics, a company that created a robot for making custom bowls from fresh ingredients. DoorDash said it is expanding its robotics team through strategic acquisitions such as this one.

DoorDash Labs is hiring autonomy engineers, robotics technicians and software engineers for autonomous platforms. All signs point to the company planning to release its own autonomous delivery robots.