Drover is proud to announce the impending launch of our Robotics Division, spearheaded by Warren Williams. He holds several US patents, in power management systems, radar, sonar, AI, agriculture, waste management, water purification, and new electric motors. He has published articles and been featured in numerous media channels, including Scientific America, Servo Magazine, Popular Mechanics, and seen on CBS news. Dateline, and Fox news. Warren, a career robotics expert and seasoned innovator, has a lot to say about the projects he will be launching at Drover.
I asked Warren about his thoughts on Drover's place in the overall market, especially in light of Uber's progress with autonomous cars.
“It's an opportunity… Uber needs some competition. They’ve got a pretty good headstart. But there’s no reason we can’t enter this market.”
In this way, he is optimistic that with proper follow-through and focused innovation, Drover will be able to develop an impressive robotics division competitive with other rideshare networks. Warren personally holds a power management patent that will be the key to allowing Drover vehicles to last longer and grow to be more reliable.
The goal of the robotics division will be two-fold. For one, we are exploring the idea of designing our own affordable, electric vehicles. If this is the case, then Warren's team will be instrumental to this. Secondly, Drover will soon begin to develop autonomous, self-driving vehicles.
Now, people are still concerned about the overall safety of autonomous vehicles. To this end, we will have human drivers operate our autonomous vehicles for as long as it takes to ensure their fool-proof operation. With that being said, it is clearly Uber's intention to one day have completely driver-less vehicles. In our opinion, this creates a problem... we are not trying to eliminate the need for human partners in our rideshare service. Warren assured me that, whatever direction we take,
we are going to foster ownership and entrepreneurship among our drivers/partners without putting people out of work.
Warren has a lot of great ideas for contributing to Drover. Among them, creating our own electric vehicles. He explained that we can make our own electric cars, and even include drivers in the process of building them, helping them get some sweat equity in the game and also feel empowered. In this way, we can develop our own proprietary fleet of affordable, reliable electric cars, and we will know how to fix them too. Eventually, we can replace the electric cars in the fleet with electric autonomous vehicles by adding sensors, an onboard computer, and other parts necessary to create an electric car.
Warren further says:
“You’d be amazed by how many people want to get their hands dirty…
Another chief task of Drover Robotics will be to stay current and agile as transportation technology improves. Warren is confident that even in the face of significant advances in transportation, such as aerial taxis, Drover's ground vehicle fleets will still remain an important service/technology -- people will always need a personal ride to go that last mile to their homes. We are excited that Drover will be positioned for rapid growth and agile development as we enter the rideshare industry and further adjacent industries start and continue to grow.
Certainly, the robotics division is an exciting new step for Drover! We are eager to provide Warren with the creative ground for developing some truly amazing technologies here at Drover. Pending funding of course -- but we are very much looking forward to this next adventure!
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Patrizio Murdocca is Chief Web Developer at Drover Rideshare, a student at Vanderbilt University, and President of Interfaced Ministries.
