Kar-go
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| Founded | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Founder | William Sachiti |
| Headquarters | Wales, United Kingdom |
| Owner | Academy of Robotics |
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Number of employees
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10+ |
| Website | www |
Kar-go is a brand of autonomous delivery vehicle. The vehicle was designed and built by the Academy of Robotics, a UK company registered in Wales. The vehicle uses self-drive/driverless car technology to drive itself to locations where it will deliver packages autonomously.
The parent company was founded in 2015 by entrepreneur William Sachiti at Aberystywth University. The company was seeded with a £10 000 grant from the University as part of its InvEnterPrize scheme. In late 2016 the company partnered with Pilgrim Motorsport a bespoke UK car manufacturer. Early 2017, the parent company Academy of Robotics was announced to be part of NVIDIA’s accelerator to further develop Kar-go. Mid 2017 company sought funding via Crowdfunding on the UK Financial Services Authority regulated firm Crowdcube. Kar-go raised 320K at a £2million post money valuation. The company has reportedly also raised an additional 300K from an unnamed tech giant at a £2.5m valuation.
Kar-go uses Bayesian Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms, which fuse data from multiple sensors and an off-line map into current location estimates and map updates. SLAM with detection and tracking of other moving objects (DATMO), which also handles things such as cars and pedestrians. Sensors include lidar and stereo vision, GPS and IMU, the vehicle also uses visual object recognition and machine vision including neural networks. Inside the vehicle is a series of motors and package swapping mechanism which allows the vehicle to deliver packages corresponding to the receiver's address.
The vehicles are is being built at bespoke car maker Pilgrim Motorsport’s UK factory. The vehicle is being produced from raw metal to a complete vehicle at this facility with an exception of the chips from NVIDIA and the battery tech from Renault. Kar-go’s team of scientists and engineers are also based at Pilgrim motorsports. The vehicles first street legal prototypes are expected to be on the road for trials in early 2018.
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Wikipedia