Nuro Teams With Foretellix to Make Automated Driving Safer

Autonomous vehicle firm Nuro has teamed with Foretellix, a provider of safety-driven verification and validation driving solutions.

The collaboration is designed to speed the large-scale deployment of autonomous vehicles for last-mile delivery, Foretellix said in a Thursday (Jan. 4) news release.

The partnership will see the companies use Foretellix’s verification and validation (V&V) platform to come up with a library of scenarios for urban settings.

“Nuro takes safety extremely seriously. Foretellix’s safety-driven V&V technology supports that commitment while accelerating our development and path to commercialization,” said Sreeja Roy Singh, head of systems engineering at Nuro.

“Foretellix’s leadership in using OpenSCENARIO 2.0 for abstract scenario description and testing automation will play a critical role in Nuro’s development process. It allows us to make our research and development more efficient, while ensuring our technology operates safely in real-world scenarios,” Singh added.

The release said the goal of the partnership is to lower Nuro’s research and development costs while improving the quality and safety of the Nuro Driver, its autonomous driving system.

The partnership comes as a number of companies are exploring the use of automation to handle delivery in areas such as food service.

For example, beaded ice cream brand Mini Melts has been using its automated kiosks to fuel sales when places such as zoos, cannot keep carts staffed.

“With the way that the labor market is, the zoo doesn’t always have someone to man that cart from nine-o’clock in the morning, when the zoo is open, until six-o’clock in the evening,” Vice President of Distribution Jenna Benvignati told PYMNTS in an interview in September. “So, the automated kiosk supports those sales where, if the [employee-operated location] isn’t opening until two in the afternoon, our customer’s still able to get the product before then.”

Meanwhile, Tortoise, a company once focused on robotic solutions for last-mile delivery, announced in 2022 that it was pivoting to providing automated mobile shops — effectively roving vending machines.

At the same time, consumers have shown some hesitancy when it comes to use of robots in delivery, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence study “Connected Dining: The Robot Will Take Your Order Now.”

“The study revealed that, for the most part, consumers are not on board with the delivery robots that are starting to take over sidewalks and skyways — 71% of those surveyed reported being uninterested in robotics or automated systems delivering food,” PYMNTS wrote.