Drs. Sabya Mishra, associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and director of C-TIER, and Mihalis Golias, professor in Civil Engineering, have received support from USDOT and the Freight Research Mobility Institute (FMRI) UTC to explore autonomous delivery solutions with a specific focus on solutions driven by the challenges of COVID-19. The tremendous potential of technology-driven innovations to address the inefficiencies in last-mile deliveries has prompted e-commerce companies, retail chains, logistic providers and technology start-ups to invest in autonomous delivery robots (ADRs). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the need for contactless deliveries that avoid the risk of person-to-person infection has made it clear that autonomous robot deliveries have many advantages.
In their study, the research team will model how ADR vehicles are likely to evolve in order to evaluate delivery robot adoption rates, and trade-offs. Everything from the costs associated with these new types of deliveries, the built-environment challenges that they must face needs to be considered in order to provide guidance to the industries that seek to utilize these solutions. The work will examine user acceptance and perception of ADR, testing of autonomous delivery robot acceptance and demand, and develop an urban logistics optimization model to minimizing logistics operating costs.
Dr. E. Kaisar with Florida Atlantic University and Dr. M.A. Figliozzi with Portland State University are the partners on this effort.
For more details on this project, contact Mishra at smishra3@memphis.edu.