Safety criteria for urban robot use in the pipeline

The idea of robots travelling on Singapore's roads to deliver food and packages is now another step closer to reality.

A set of safety criteria for the deployment of autonomous mobile robots in outdoor urban environments will be developed by technology firm Continental Automotive Singapore and global testing and certification giant TUV SUD.

The German company has a $100 million regional hub at the International Business Park in Jurong.

The benchmarks seek to minimise the chances of an accident, such as a collision between a robot and a person or vehicle.

The criteria may eventually be adopted here as a safety standard, which would be among the first in the world for the use of autonomous mobile robots in cities.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the partnership was inked at Continental's office in Boon Keng Road yesterday.

Under the MOU, the companies will develop the safety criteria using feedback from trials of Continental's autonomous robots here.

These include a 10-month pilot which ended last month, where the robots delivered food from Dignity Kitchen to Continental's office. The social enterprise foodcourt and hawker training school for the differently abled is also located in Boon Keng Road.

Past projects by Continental include a similar food delivery service for students at Nanyang Technological University, which ended in December 2020, and one with the Infocomm Media Development Authority that used a 5G network here to run the robots. The latter project ended in March.

In a joint statement, Continental and TUV SUD said one of the first scenarios to be assessed is teleoperation, or the remote manual control of a robot.

Continental's robots are fully automated but can be taken over by a human operator if required, such as when a robot encounters an obstacle in its delivery route.

In cases where the operator is remotely controlling the robot, factors such as low latency - having little or no lag time - are essential.

The two organisations will also consider the robustness of cyber-security features, to prevent hackers from seizing control of the robot, as well as the robot's adaptability when encountering low-visibility conditions such as heavy rain.

But the set of benchmarks developed should not be so strict that it stifles innovation, said TUV SUD Asean chief executive officer Richard Hong. "We don't want the standards to be so high that no autonomous mobile robot can meet them - then there's no point (in having them)," he said.

Mr Tan Kiat How, Minister of State for National Development and for Communications and Information, said the safe use of autonomous mobile robots is important as the country harnesses technological innovations to meet future mobility needs.

"I hope that the outcomes of this collaboration can be scaled to other cities around the world to support their smart city developments," he said.

The MOU signing comes after ride-hailing giant Grab's announcement last month about its involvement in a trial that will see a robot deliver food at Sentosa's Siloso Beach. Grab said the collaboration with technology firm NCS will start this month.

Trials involving the delivery of food and other items by robots have taken place in several cities across the world such as Helsinki in Finland and Paris in France.

Correction note: In the previous version of this article, we stated that a past project by Continental - a food delivery service for students at Nanyang Technological University - ended last year. Continental has clarified that the project ended in December 2020.