Food delivery robots launch in downtown Dallas

Downtown dwellers and workers have a new way to get a meal delivered, as autonomous vehicle delivery launched Tuesday in Dallas.

Avride deployed five of its robotic delivery machines to transport lunch orders from two downtown restaurants.

The company, pronounced "A-V ride" for autonomous vehicle, has its U.S operations based in Austin, where food delivery robots launched earlier this year.

Yulia Shevyko with Avride says the company has partnered with Uber on autonomous vehicle endeavors. The food delivery portion of the venture allows users to have one of the company's robots deliver food through the UberEats app.

"The robots are designed to take care of the so-called hyperlocal delivery," Shevyko said.

And do it in a pretty pedestrian-savvy way.

Avride’s robots scoot along at under ten miles an hour, with 360-degree radius cameras to detect people and other potential obstacles, helping it navigate sidewalks, cross streets, even understand traffic lights.

The robots are aided by LIDAR, light detection and ranging, using lasers to measure distance and map a designated area. The technology has become the industry standard for autonomous vehicles.

NBC 5 watched Avride make some of its first Dallas deliveries Tuesday near Akard and Main as the service went live.

We weren’t the only ones.

Bundled-up pedestrians, many with their own lunch in hand, stopped to snap photos of the robot traversing an intersection. 

Hamza Jahangir works nearby and said the Avride caught his attention.

“I just saw it from far away, like a block down and I was like ‘This is actually amazing,'” Jahangir said.

Others gave the device little more than a glance as they walked.

Texas approved autonomous delivery vehicles with statewide regulations in 2019.

While cities can't prohibit the devices, the law does provide flexibility for cities, such as lowering the speed limit of robots. State law allows robots up to 10 miles per hour in pedestrian areas, and up to 20 miles per hour along the sides of roads and highway shoulders.

Dallas currently doesn't have any regulations for the devices.

Shevyko says companies operating in the autonomous vehicle space have a vested interest in the safety of their fleet, because without it, any chance for long-term viability in an emerging business sector is limited.

Avride says it plans to continue mapping more of the downtown corridor in the coming weeks to allow for deployment of additional food delivery robots, with plans to expand to neighborhoods outside of downtown possible in 2025.