Pipedream Labs deploys underground robotic delivery system in Texas drive thru

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Pipedream’s shuttle robots run on unpowered rails through the company’s pipe system to deliver food. | Source: Pipedream

Pipedream Labs Inc. announced the launch of its robotic food-delivery system at a leading quick-service restaurant, or QSR. The system delivers food orders from the kitchen to the customer in under 15 seconds, “transforming fast food into instant food,” it said.

The Austin, Texas-based company uses underground robots to facilitate high-speed delivery for QSRs and other facilities. Pipedream said it is dedicated to revolutionizing logistics and creating seamless, hyper-efficient systems for the modern world.

Canon Reeves, co-founder and chief technology officer of Pipedream, said autonomous delivery is inevitable, but it still has a long way to go before it becomes a reality. The restaurant industry is facing a long-term technical problem, as delivery robots need to seamlessly navigate sidewalks while sharing them with humans, he said.

Pipedream has taken this technical problem and transformed it into a constrained financial problem, Reeves asserted. 

“We know how much it costs to put in pipes. We can make these pipes smart and deliver robots,” he told The Robot Report. “As long as there’s enough value in getting things from A to B and every single point along that pipe, the match can pencil you to where you can finance that pipe.” 

This launch is part of Pipedream’s broader mission to make hyper-logistics a reality. The company aims to drastically reduce delivery times and streamline restaurant operations. Strong financial backing has fueled rapid growth. Pipedream previously raised $13 million in venture capital.

Pipedream Labs picks QSRs as its focus

Late last year, Pipedream Labs tested a below-ground system for fast and cost-effective autonomous deliveries in Peachtree Corners, Ga. While the company is still pursuing city-wide deployments like that one, it has also expanded its focus to new areas. 

“We sort of stumbled into pickup as a category,” Reeves said. “We knew that if we were going to create this individual network, that it was going to take a long time to do, and it was going to be really hard. You have to both integrate with suppliers and the demand side, with apartments and neighborhoods.”

“We kind of looked at our product and realized that we have the opportunity to take drive thru to that next step, which is, when I pull up, my thing is ready right then, and I can just grab it and go,” he continued.

Many restaurants and grocery stores are facing a challenge when it comes to pickup, noted Reeves. Customers love the option because it makes things much more convenient for them. However, businesses are now taking on extra work or increasing the number of online orders. 

“So just by talking to these customers, we realize that, oh man, if you could teleport things from one from inside the building to any spot in a parking lot, you could actually make a pretty great product,” Reeves said.

What Pipedream is building is similar to the pneumatic tubes in banks or pharmacies. The challenge is in creating a similar system that will work with food and drinks. 

“We have the most traction in the quick service restaurants category right now; that’s sort of the simplest and easier portion of the system. It’s the product we’re technically the furthest along on,” Reeves said. “That being said, we’ve developed really strong relationships in the grocery market and anticipate having grocery customers in the near term. And then we’re also working really hard towards the city deployment.”

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How will the robotic deliveries work?

Pipedream Labs’ system starts with constructing underground pipes for its robots to operate in. This process is a lot simpler than people would expect, said Reeves.

“It’s very simple. You are cutting some concrete, removing that concrete, removing the dirt, putting in some gravel, putting in the pipes, putting back some dirt, and putting on some more concrete,” he explained.

The recent deployment took Pipedream about four and a half days to finish construction, Reeves said. The company aims to bring this time down to just two or three days. 

“There’s some innovations that we can do in terms of reducing the amount that we have to dig, and in basically staging things so that as one process finishes another one starts,” said Reeves. “These are operational things that come from doing it more times.”

The construction process also includes implementing Pipedream’s above-ground kiosks, where customers will pick up their orders. This is one of the trickier parts of the system, Reeves acknowledged.

The company’s team had to create a system that uses robotics to raise the customer’s order to the kiosk window. It also created an interface that is simple enough for anyone to understand with zero training. 

“We’ve put a ton of time and engineering into creating what we call ‘portals,’ which are above-ground kiosks that customers and workers interface with,” Reeves said. “I would actually say about 50% of our engineering goes into the above-ground system, and then 50% goes into the underground, if not less.”

Pipedream looks to a smart city future

While Pipedream Labs is taking on numerous projects, Reeves said it is still working toward the same goal.

“Our focus and our goal has always been to be this sort of city-wide backbone for autonomous logistics. That is still the path we’re pursuing,” Reeves said. “It takes a certain level of organizational discipline to pursue these different markets and categories together, but the key is the technology underpinning all of this is the same. So the engineering team is all working on the same product.”

Moving forward, Reeves said that he imagines a future where Pipedream’s system works in tandem with other delivery robots. 

“We believe in this world where our system can hand off to other systems,” he said. “So you can image this system getting it close to your neighborhood, and maybe a sidewalk robot finished that last 100 feet to your doorstep.” 

For now, Pipedream claimed that it provides a safer and more reliable alternative to other robotic delivery methods. 

“If a drone messes up, it really can cause some harm, but if our system messes up, or if our construction goes wrong, there’s just not much room for us to hurt anybody or do anything that would negatively affect the city,” Reeves said.

Pipedream is a small company but is actively recruiting engineers for its team, said Reeves.