Governments using robots for postal delivery, waste management

The newest cutting-edge feature of robotics is saving taxpayer money. Or at least, that is the idea behind their long-term use in aiding government services.

Germany's Deutsche Post is currently testing robots to help postal workers deliver parcels, according to Reuters. The city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates also announced recently that it would be using drones to help spot littering and illegal waste dumping.

Using drones for aerial monitoring is not new, but these devices are increasingly becoming automated. Just as the commercial sector has found by researching autonomous vehicle delivery, be it by air or ground, governments are now looking seriously into the benefits of adopting this kind of technology.

The robots for Deutsche Post look like a “table on wheels,” according to Reuters, and they are designed to follow around postal workers while carrying large, heavy parcels. Deutsche Post is also looking into using these robots as mobile pickup points for parcels, but regulations for autonomous driving would have to catch up before that becomes a possibility. It is not hard to imagine how this might work, though. There are already companies testing delivery robots, primarily for food delivery.

Dubai’s program is being managed by the city’s waste management department. But it has not said anything about autonomous drones, and identifying litterers would be difficult without people watching the cameras. Still, drones can cut down on the manpower needed to monitor large areas.

The Dubai Media Office posted a picture on Twitter of something that looks like a small DIY drone. The tweet suggests this is what is being used “to catch litterbugs.” Many aerial drones these days are very affordable, and most of them either come with cameras or have the ability to attach external ones. It goes to show that it does not necessarily take expensive hardware for governments to work more efficiently these days.