Nuro, a Mountain View based robotics company, has a mission to accelerate the benefits of robotics for everyday life. The bread-and-butter of its operation is the development of autonomous vehicles, intended for public road grocery delivery. Today, with a global pandemic affecting the everyday life it sought to optimize, Nuro has implemented a new use for their technology.
After the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, in collaboration with the Kings, turned the Natomas arena into a surge hospital, Nuro saw an opportunity to help.
Nuro has been testing its prototypes at the former home of the Kings since October of 2017, and was able to witness the transition first-hand.
“We were on-site, we were told that this was happening, and obviously we wanted to help,” said Stephanie Henning, Technical Program Manager.
In the span of just over two weeks, the team members at Nuro worked to create a completely new use case for its vehicles.
The new mission is to help the state of California with touchless vehicles, moving and deploying medical goods throughout the facility. This enables a decrease in the touch-points between people – ultimately in hopes to reduce the spread of the virus on-site.
“What this really means to me is an opportunity amidst a pandemic to truly make a difference to those on the front lines,” said David Syverud, Head of Robot Operations.