물류매거진

Woowa Brothers / Developed self-driving delivery robot 'Dilly' for Korean delivery environment

Developed self-driving delivery robot 'Dilly' for Korean delivery environment

Advanced delivery robots to support rider first and last mile delivery

2024/05

Dilly, a robot developed by Woowa Brothers, is testing outdoor delivery services in Samsung-dong Teheran-ro and Songpa, where apartments are densely populated.

Woowa Brothers, who operate the delivery app BDMJ, are sophisticating their robot delivery service because they are fostering delivery robots as a new growth engine.

Hank Hwang, head of the business planning team at the Robotics Lab, said at the Global ICT Outlook Conference held on the sidelines of the World IT Show last month on the 17th. “We started with food delivery and expanded into commerce such as Bae Min B Mart and Bae Min Store, establishing ourselves as the fastest delivery company for goods and services.” “After thinking about the future of food, we decided that delivery robots have high market potential,” he said.

Started the delivery robot business to solve the mismatch between delivery supply and demand

The domestic delivery market is expected to grow from KRW 9.7 trillion in 2019 to KRW 26.4 trillion in 2023. The number of delivery ethnicities has also grown at an average annual rate of 57% over the same period.

As the market has expanded, so have complaints about delivery. The number of delivery workers in Korea grew from 120,000 in 2019 to 240,000 in 2022, and the country's delivery infrastructure is among the best in the world, ranking first among 20 countries that actively use food delivery.

However, problems arise when there is a mismatch between supply and demand. In bad weather, such as rain or snow, delivery can be difficult, and if the number of riders is insufficient while customer orders remain the same or increase, delays and order cancellations are more likely to occur. Also, during popular sporting events such as soccer matches, the supply of riders often cannot keep up with the rapidly increasing demand for orders in a short period of time.

In addition, if the location requires too much walking time, such as a department store or shopping mall, it becomes difficult for riders to access and deliver.

“These orders only account for about 1% of all orders, but in terms of numbers, it's more than a million,” said Hank Hwang. ”For business owners, it's a big problem because it causes consumer dissatisfaction and lost sales opportunities.”

To solve this problem, Woowa Brothers started the delivery robot business in 2017.

Outdoor robot delivery service 'nearing commercialization'

In the early days, they started by importing various delivery robots from overseas and customizing them to suit the domestic environment. However, they encountered problems that prevented them from operating properly in Korea due to the different autonomous driving environments in different cities.

“The driving environment in Korea is too complex, as many commercial areas are located on back roads or alongside boulevards, resulting in high traffic, and apartments have completely different structures depending on the year of the apartment,” said Hank Hwang. ”The climate is also too hot in summer and too cold in winter, and foreign robots were not well adapted to the slippery road environment, which is often snowy and rainy.”

In 2021, Woowa Brothers began developing their own robots from software to hardware.

The result is Dilly, an AI-based autonomous delivery robot. Dilly is equipped with sensors such as lidar, traffic signal recognition cameras, and obstacle recognition cameras. It has the ability to recognize objects, calculate their location, and identify and predict their movements using deep learning and computer vision-based perception that learns large amounts of data. It also uses behavior tree technology to determine robot movements while being aware of the surrounding situation, and utilizes various navigation algorithms to create safe and efficient travel routes. As a result, it can quickly and accurately identify surrounding objects and obstacles in complex urban environments, avoid pedestrians on crowded sidewalks, and quickly create new routes in the event of an emergency.

Based on this, Woowa Brothers started an outdoor delivery service on Teheran-ro, Samseong-dong, using Dilly in November last year.

The Dilly has six wheels for better grip, and independent suspension so that it can navigate uneven surfaces such as dirt roads and curbs without spilling or damaging food while maintaining speed. The four-wheel drive also prevents it from slipping on snow or rain, and makes it easy to maneuver in tight spaces such as elevators and apartment corridors. In addition, the Dilly is IP54 waterproof and dustproof to withstand dust and rain, enabling stable service in Korea's climate, which is characterized by seasonal changes.

In addition, a human-friendly design was applied to provide a smooth delivery service while mingling in the same space as people, and the front LED and TTS (voice synthesis) were introduced to communicate with various facial expressions and voices. In recognition of this, it was awarded the '2024 IF Design Award' and the '2024 Red Dot Award'.

In order to make the robot affordable and durable, Woowa Brothers developed almost all of its software and hardwares, in-house to lower production costs. Engineers are also constantly verifying the robot's ability to withstand external shocks.

Woowa Brothers' ultimate goal is to enable delivery robots to support riders in the first and last mile, where it is difficult for riders to reach.

“We have the most source data on delivery, so we know best where to place the robots, how to configure the containers, and so on,” said Hank Hwang, team leader. ”With this data, we will continue to improve our delivery robots.”