After self-driving cars, company introduces self-driving billboard-cum-vending machine

Where self-driving cars are becoming old news now, a robotics company has introduced a self-driving vending machine-cum-billboard.

A Chinese robotics firm called PerceptIn introduced a self-driving vending along with a mobile advertising unit, which it calls the ‘DragonFly Intelligent Advertising Vehicle’. In simpler terms, the vehicle is a robotic billboard that takes money.

The company released a video demonstrating how the device works. The video showed a little robot on wheels coming over to a thirsty runner. However, the robot can also be hailed by phone for purchasing food, drinks or other products offered, reported Mashable.

Video Courtesy: Shaoshan Liu

According to the company, this innovative way intends to capture people’s attention, like it did in PerceptIn’s 15 minute test. The vehicle grabbed attention of almost 1,000 people, of which almost 60% looked at the autonomous ad for over 5 seconds, which PerceptIn considers a sign of being ‘highly engaged’.

The shuttle contains four displays, two smaller screens on the front and rear and two windscreen monitors on either side, and a scrolling message board on top. It contains a physical button that activates the vending machine, which gives out beverages or other merchandise.

Its numerous vision sensors and an AI-infused software platform also enable it to be hailed by an arm gesture from a passerby. Also, the robotic vehicle has the ability to gather location-based data showing when and where people are paying attention to the vehicle, explained Venture Beat.

PerceptIn says that the DragonFly is a retail opportunity and will begin selling it in the first part of 2019 for the price of $40,000 to select US customers. The CEO, Shaoshan Liu, believes that it’s because of this low selling cost as compared to other digital billboards and self-driving vehicles that will act as the key selling point.

“We designed the DragonFly Intelligent Advertising Vehicle as a way to bring intelligence to an area of advertising and retail that had little to none. Our Intelligent Advertising Vehicle technology offers the next pioneers of commerce the ability to easily connect the digital to the offline world and set up their own visually engaging ‘autonomous showroom’ quickly and affordably,” said Liu.