Self-driving Ford Vehicles Could Come with Robot Sidekicks

When an autonomous Ford Transit shows up with a package, you won’t even have to walk out to get it.

Dr. Ken Washington is the Vice President of Research and Advanced Engineering along with serving as the Chief Technology Officer for Ford Motor Company. He recently wrote a piece for Medium.com in which he introduced us to Digit, a high tech robot that works with an autonomous Transit Connect to deliver packages right to your door. This unique partnership could help to revolutionize the world of online shopping, whether you are getting office supplies from Amazon or take-out from the Olive Garden.

This piece also included the video above from the Ford Motor Company YouTube channel, showing the unique delivery robot in action.

The Need for a Robot

Advancements in self-driving vehicles has opened up the world of delivery vehicles that can bring boxes to the customer without a human driver at the wheel. For example, Ford has developed self-driving Transit Connect vans that can serve as autonomous delivery vehicles, but there is a problem with this approach. When the vehicle gets to the customer, one of two things has to happen; there has to be a human in the delivery vehicle to take the package to the customer or the customer needs to come out and retrieve the package from the vehicle.

Having a human driver in the vehicle to walk boxes from the street to the door kind of negates the advantages of the self-driving vehicle and there are plenty of situations where it isn’t feasible for the customer to come get the package out of the vehicle when it arrives.

So how do you get a box from an autonomous Ford Transit Connect to the door without a person? A robot, of course.

Meet Digit

Ford Motor Company worked with Agility Robotics to help create a solution for the final step in the online shopping process and that solution is Digit. Digit is a robot developed to have the basic shape of a human and it is programmed to deliver boxes from a vehicle to the door. Digit can go up and down stairs, over rough terrain and be physically interfered-with and continue to the door, all while carrying a box that weighs up to 40 pounds.

Realistically, the average person doesn’t order many things online that weigh more than 40 pounds, so Digit could carry many items that are popular through online commerce, from clothes to household supplies to take-out food and groceries. Anything that the average delivery driver could carry from the street to the door can be loaded into an autonomous Ford Transit Connect, driven to its destination and carried to the door by Digit.

How Digit Works

Digit is equipped with LiDAR and a few stereo cameras that allow it to navigate basic obstacles like a scooter laying on a sidewalk or set of stairs, but the real brains of the operation come from the Ford Transit Connect. Like all self-driving vehicles, Ford’s autonomous vehicles use a variety of systems to monitor the surround area, so in working with the radar and camera systems of Digit, the vehicle is able to help the delivery robot work around more complicated obstacles.

For example, some hours have a front door that is literally 15 feet up a straight walkway from the street, so Digit has a straight shot from the street to the delivery point, but in hillier areas of the country, some people have a long driveway with a series of steps winding up to a front door that is 20 feet above street level. In a case like that, Digit would use the information from the vehicle to make its way from the street to the door.

In theory, this means that you could order groceries from your local supermarket that will be loaded into an autonomous Ford Transit Connect, but that would be the last time that your items are touched by a human until you pick them up from your front porch. You order what you want, it is loaded into the vehicle, the Ford van drives to your house, Digit carries the box of groceries to the front door and you get a text that your items are waiting on your porch.

Rise of the Machines

The biggest concern with technology like this is that humans are growing to be too dependent on robots while taking jobs away from humans. Some people will point out that in some situations, having a delivery robot is safer all around, as there is no chance of a human delivery driver being robbed along the way, nor is there a chance of the robot robbing the customer. After all, we have all heard the stories about ride-sharing drivers being robbed and vice-versa.

No one is going to try to rob a robot, shy of maybe trying to steal the box, but in the long run, a stolen box of socks from Amazon is better than a delivery driver getting beat up for a box of socks from Amazon. On the other hand of things, the robot also isn’t going to rob the customer, at least not until we run into the scenario depicted in so many science fiction movies.

In the Terminator movies series or the one-off hit I, Robot, the robots rise up and take over humans as an effort to help us from destroying ourselves. Right now, robots like Digit are only helping humans by carrying packages to the door, but as we get into robots that are designed to make more decisions on their own, we get closer to facing an unpleasant war with robots that look like famous bodybuilders.

Join the Ford Truck Enthusiasts forums now!

Patrick Rall

"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.

"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.

"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.

"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.

"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.

"Being based on Detroit," says Rall, "I never miss the North American International Auto Show, the Woodward Dream Cruise and Roadkill Nights, along with spending plenty of time raising hell on Detroit's Woodward Avenue with the best muscle car crowd in the world.

Facebook   Twitter