Give it a wave and wish it well, because Roxo is going on an adventure.
That’s right. FedEx’s plucky same-day delivery bot is headed to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for further testing. FedEx Express, the company’s largest subsidiary, has signed an agreement with the Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority (DIEZ), to start autonomous trials. They’ll be conducted between the Dubai Silicon Oasis headquarters and Dubai Digital Park.
“Dubai, with its world-class infrastructure and highly adaptable market for new technologies, is an ideal location for the international mapping and testing of the Roxo autonomous bot,” said Taarek Hinedi, VP of FedEx Express’ Middle East and Africa operations, in a press release.
The trial will include the creation of an optimized route along footpaths and roadsides; and with the assistance of human teleoperators, Roxo will look to navigate a safe path to replicate a door-to-door delivery experience.
This isn’t the bot’s first rodeo, either.
Roxo, which was announced in February 2019, has already undergone trials in multiple cities over the last few years. In December 2019, it assisted the Greater Memphis Chamber as it announced its next chairman. And though former New York City mayor Bill De Blasio scolded Roxo that fall, FedEx is confident in its prospects.
During a virtual innovation showcase in October 2020, company execs painted a picture of a future that’s full of the bot — one where it would casually navigate through neighborhoods, climb the curbs, and reach porches to deliver things like pizzas.
“It’s very real,” FedEx CIO Rob Carter said of Roxo at the October event. “And you can imagine the difference between a 3,000-pound car, driving around with a person to deliver a 3-pound pizza, and something like Roxo, with it’s incredible economics, how green it is, and how efficient it is to deliver on a future that we all see coming at us at a breakneck speed.”
According to execs, Roxo can stay level on steep inclines, climb curbs and stairs, and travel on a variety of surfaces, from sand to gravel to snow. The bot is learning how to interact with pedestrians through routing and mapping and has a library of hundreds of thousands of objects, which it can match up to things it encounters on the street and then decide how to react. Each item in Roxo's database is labeled at least four times: once for what it looks like during the day, once for night, once for rain, and once for inclement weather (like snow).
Roxo also isn’t the only autonomous technology FedEx plans on using.
For example, in June 2021, the delivery services giant announced it had signed a multiyear, multiphase agreement with Nuro Inc. — the California-based autonomous vehicle company — to test its autonomous delivery vehicle. And in March 2022, FedEx Express revealed it had partnered with South San Francisco-based Elroy Air, which is developing autonomous aircraft systems and software.
