The beginning and the end are the critical stages of any journey, as the precise navigation required is a tough challenge for autonomous vehicles (and for many human drivers as well).

“We are doing something that very few other companies are doing, which is mastering the first and last hundred feet,” said Daniel Laury (pictured), chief executive officer and chief product officer of Udelv Inc., an autonomous vehicle delivery service that is currently operating in the Bay Area. “Slow motion, high precision. One to two centimeter accuracies. To be able to maneuver in parking lots, be able to back up in driveways and things like that.”

Laury spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the Autotech Council Autonomous Vehicles event in Milpitas, California. They discussed the launch of Udelv and how the company has surmounted the obstacles to safe and accurate delivery with autonomous vehicles. (* Disclosure below.)

Navigating the parking lot is the hardest task

Udelv started operations in January 2018, making it the first public road-enabled autonomous delivery company, according to Laury. “Our aim is … to make deliveries easier, more convenient for consumers, more ubiquitous, faster and cheaper, of course,” he said.

Describing parking lots as “lawless places,” Udelv developed an artificial intelligence stack with a scene estimator for maneuvering into parking spots and around parked cars. Teleoperations provide an added layer of safety; all vehicles are monitored remotely, with operators able to take control in a special situation.

“And we’re doing this with an ultra-low latency, less than 200 milliseconds between the image we receive from the truck and the command we’re giving back, which allows us to actually drive the vehicle in the streets as if it was a video game,” Laury said.

Udelv has mastered not only the technical obstacles of autonomous driving and parking, but the softer skill of providing an excellent customer experience, he explained. The customer schedules delivery using Udelv’s app, and a push notification is sent when the vehicle is four minutes away. Tapping the app opens a secure locker on Udelv’s iconic orange delivery vehicle, and the customer takes the ordered item(s) out.

“People love the service. Their reaction has been overwhelmingly positive,” Laury stated.

Although he tempers his optimism with caution, saying, “Success is one of the possibilities … but not necessarily the likeliest.”

Laury has high hopes for Udelv. “Within two or three weeks from having launched … we’ve received phone calls from every large retailer … wanting to do business with us. So it’s a very, very exciting start,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Autotech Council Autonomous Vehicles event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Autotech Council Autonomous Vehicles event. Neither Western Digital Corp., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE