In California, the robot-hostel arranged a session of self-immolation in the middle of the sidewalk (video)

A number of companies around the world are developing and testing small wheel robots, which, according to engineers, in the future will be able to replace couriers and postmen. The possibility of mass introduction of such robots causes discussions and doubts related to the safety of robots for others and the safety of the cargo. The incident with a wealthy robot, which has occurred the other day on the California city of Berkeley, may negatively affect the future of this branch of robotics.

According to The Verge , on December 15, a compact robot created by the Kiwi startup and undergoing tests as a food deliver suddenly caught fire on a crowded sidewalk. As a result of the fire, no one was injured, and passers -by managed to photograph this self -immolation session and shoot it on the video. Later, a small memorial arranged by students in honor of the robot appeared at the fire site.

After some time, the incident commented on Kiwi. According to the company's statement , the fire managed to quickly eliminate the fire - a passerby covered by the flame of the robot was put out before arriving at the place of the fire brigade. Presumably, the cause of the fire was the "human factor": the robot was mistakenly equipped with a defective battery, which caught fire due to overheating. A similar marriage two years ago caused many fires of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.

Before the end of the investigation, the company suspended the work of the delivery service using robots. Kiwi also promised to add an algorithm to the firmware, which would carefully monitor the condition of the robot batteries in order to avoid repetition of such incidents.

The food delivery system using Kiwi robots, which overcome part of the path to customers on a tricycle with a courier, was launched in 2017. In May of this year, Kiwi reported that the robots successfully completed 10 thousand delivery. The average order delivery time was 27 minutes.

Recall that in December last year, the San Francisco authorities limited the movement of robots around the city. The approved rules allow companies to use no more than three robots simultaneously, and such robots can move only in industrial zones at a speed of up to 5 km/h and under the constant control of the operator.