What do you want to eat? High-tech food delivery



    Man is a lazy animal that loves comfort very much, to get everything at once and as soon as possible. And on these our properties is built the business of an astronomical number of companies offering various services. Including food delivery services. A person who first thought of delivering ready-made meals for money needs to erect a monument: you don’t need to go anywhere, prepare something yourself, spending a lot of time and energy on it. Moreover, independent masterpieces of cooking can be more expensive than ready-made and home delivery. For many decades, the peak of high technology in this area was an order by phone. Then the Internet appeared, and it became even more convenient to order food to your doorstep. But technology and invention wanting to enrich themselves on human laziness do not stand still. What else is interesting is invented, so that it is possible with a minimum of effort to please the stomach?

    Today, a cafe or restaurant is not enough just to offer the delivery service of their dishes. The competition in the catering industry is great, and when things are not going so well in the economy, people start saving on such pleasant things as ordering mussels in a cream sauce from the nearest restaurant. In addition, catering establishments often become hostages of their location: residents of surrounding houses may not provide the proceeds necessary for survival, preferring to buy in low-grade grocery stores. So the more potential customers find out about your eatery, the more likely it is to go through hard times. Therefore, there are services offering food delivery from various establishments, many of which would never reach a large audience. For example, Delivery Clubhe has joined with thousands of cafes, restaurants, pizzerias, bakeries and pastry shops: the service is engaged in advertising and delivering dishes for a share of the revenue of its partners. In fact, it is a single entry point for hungry citizens who do not need to study the Internet in search of something tasty.

    Following Icarus


    But such services are, in fact, only the result of a competent optimization of business processes. From the point of view of technology, everything is familiar here: a website and a call center for receiving orders, a database of partners in different cities and a well-trained courier service. Much more interesting projects for the delivery of food by robots and drones. Although drones are no longer new to us: in recent years, several experiments have been carried out in different countries on the delivery of "rotary-wing". For example, the American company 7-Eleven and the omnipresent Amazon delivered by air (however, the latter has much broader plans ). Foodpanda, which offers a food delivery service to two dozen countries, last March promisedSoon arrange delivery of drones in Singapore. According to the calculations, “flying waiters” would help reduce the duration of the execution of orders on average from 60-70 minutes to 30. Alas, but so far Foodpanda has not been able to prove words with deeds. New Zealand's Domino's Pizza division was also noted with a promo clip with pizza pizza carriers, but for some reason the matter didn’t go further, although commercial delivery by drones is now allowed in New Zealand.


    We, too, three years ago, "Dodo Pizza" tried this innovative way of delivery. Alas, but on experiments so far everything has stalled . And there are many reasons for this, from technological to social and legal.


    In Russia, the rules for using drones are becoming increasingly tougher: each device is heavier than 250 grams. must be registered, an application must be made in advance for each flight session with an indication of the route, and so on. In addition, in the cities for drones, a myriad of obstacles - wires, birds, poles, trees, dense buildings, not to mention the difficulties and risks during landing. And what a expanse this is for intruders of all stripes - to disguise your device under the drone of the nearest eatery, and to do your dark deeds with everyone in sight. Finally, the residents of the upper floors are unlikely to like the drones with boxes plying past their windows: “Or maybe he is taking pictures of me naked through the window at this time ?!”. There is no solution yet for the problem of theft and vandalism against drones. By the way, note that in both previous videos the drones did not sit down, and lowered the load on the string. This reduces the risk of a crash during landing and the likelihood of the drone being stolen by a smart buyer or bystanders.

    Nevertheless, the opportunity to save on salaries to couriers and increase the speed of delivery forces businesses to actively lobby for delivery with drones. And we, lovers of tasty food at home, waiting and hoping. Whatever one may say, and drones - air, land and water - this is the inevitable future, which must not be denied, but begun to “master”. Fortunately, this is not all dull with us: in January of this year, the Ministry of Labor officially registered the profession “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Operator”. Also, by the end of 2018, it is planned to work out a legislative framework for the legalization of cargo transportation by drones. It is unlikely that in the coming years we should expect the emergence of automatic waiters drones, like Amazon, but it all starts small.


    Earthly creatures


    Robots and drones are subject not only to the sky. Who said that delivering sweets can only be through the air? There are already a number of projects to create robots couriers. For example, a robot created by Starship , a hybrid that looks like a hybrid of a multicooker and a lunar rover, can not only deliver cake in the neighborhood, but also fulfill the role of your personal carrier. He knows how to come to the appointed place on a schedule, as well as follow the owner as a faithful Sherpa.




    By the way, Starship together with Mercedes-Benz offered an interesting idea: several robots are loaded into a regular minibus, a car arrives in a certain area, robots leave by a ramp, deliver orders to nearby addresses and automatically return to the minibus. A perfect embodiment of the launch vehicle idea with a split warhead.


    The company Yelp has a service with the speaker name Eat24. Together with the startup Marble, they implemented an experimental food delivery with a large chest of drawers on wheels.


    Having ordered the delivery, you wait for the robot, enter the code sent to you on the keyboard and pick up the desired food of the gods. After that, the device is sent to the following address - after all, it can go several orders at once.


    A similar concept is implemented in his robot courier and start-up Dispatch , which last year raised $ 2 million through crowdfunding.


    The Australian division Domino's Pizza last year introduced the DRU robot Domino's Robotic Unit, an automatic pizza delivery device. Although this is more like a one-time promotional campaign, however, the robot seems to be quite a workable option. And as for the design of the most pleasant among all the robots, waiters.


    Of course, ground robots are devoid of many of the drawbacks of the drone. But at the same time they are much more vulnerable. In many cities and villages, they will first steal bags from robots, then remove tires from them, and empty containers will be filled with garbage. Or drunk gopnik will ride them. It is hard to disagree with the thesis that robots-waiters are still suitable for use only in socially prosperous areas, closed villages and hotels.


    The development of technology today is clearly ahead of the law. If you wish, you can release an army of robot waiters into the streets in a year. But this is unlikely to happen even after 10 years - the laws can be corrected, but how to prepare society for this innovation? It will take a lot of time.

    PS Finally, they could not help but talk about a great idea - a vending machine for the sale of ravioli. Over the hill there are vending machines, for example, pizza, hot dogs, donuts, but this is not the same. And then - dumplings! You throw a coin, a machine for 4 minutes prepares a portion of frozen dumplings for you and serves it with the heat of the heat. Additionally, you can buy a fork, salt, pepper and mayonnaise. Bachelor's dream!


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