Webinar Summary Looking at Autonomous Solutions and Redefining Urban Logistics

A webinar conducted by Pamela Gauci, Senior Marketing Manager at Velodyne Lidar, and Arjun Narang, Co-Founder and CTO of Gatik, discussed how autonomous solutions can tackle expensive urban logistics for businesses.

The episode was part of the digital learning series on “Automation and Safety During COVID-19,” organized by Velodyne.

Focusing on B2B short-haul logistics for the retail industry, Gatik uses automated light trucks and vans to help ensure goods are transported efficiently and affordably in city environments between business locations. Gatik’s autonomous vehicles (AV), equipped with Velodyne’s Alpha Prime and Puck sensors, reduce the high cost of urban logistics and help customers meet consumer demand for real-time goods, increase road safety and meet an unprecedented expectation for contactless delivery.

Here are three takeaways from the webinar:

1. Retailers striving to keep up with online customer demand spurred by COVID-19 is driving logistics innovation.

Retailers are challenged in addressing customer expectations created by rising demand of online orders driven by the pandemic. Additionally, customers are expecting contactless deliveries. Arjun discussed how autonomous delivery vehicles will play a huge role in helping retailers make changes to their logistics processes to tackle these challenges. 

2. Addressing the “middle mile” is a sweet spot market for achieving autonomy at scale.

Gatik focuses on moving goods between stores, distribution centers and collection points – a logistics flow known as the middle mile. Arjun reviewed how this approach is very different from other AV companies. He noted that Gatik’s approach of delivering autonomy in a very structured way by moving goods between fixed points on known routes makes it easier to scale autonomous logistics services.

3. Lidar delivers essential capabilities to an autonomous vehicle solution.

Arjun said lidar technology is a necessary component of a full sensor suite when putting a safe AV system on the road. He discussed how lidar helps Gatik achieve complete coverage around their vehicles. Arjun added lidar sensors provide the perception capabilities needed to enable accurate detection and identification of objects at long range which is very important to seeing incoming traffic at high speeds.

Watch the full webinar below!