Ocado looks to develop autonomous urban delivery with technology company Wayve

Ocado Group has invested £10m in a collaboration with autonomous mobility company Wayve to develop autonomous urban grocery deliveries.

The collaboration includes an autonomous delivery trial that will see Wayve’s advanced deep learning and camera-first technology fitted onto a selection of Ocado delivery vans and tested on urban delivery routes.

According to Wayve, its technology has the ability to adapt to new, unstructured, highly complex environments, without the need for pre-programming, human-designed rules, or high definition mapping.

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The trial will give Ocado first-hand experience of how Wayve can handle the congested streets and challenging manoeuvres that last-mile delivery technology must be equipped to navigate.

A part of Ocado’s existing delivery fleet will also be outfitted with Wayve’s data collection devices to provide data for training and for validating Wayve’s technology.

Alex Kendall, chief executive of Wayve said: “Globally, there is huge momentum to transform mobility in grocery operations right now. We are focused on delivering an autonomous last-mile solution to support the needs of grocery retailers everywhere.

“Through this partnership with Ocado Group we aim to unlock autonomous delivery faster in more places worldwide.”