Autonomous mobility company Wayve has received a £10 million investment from Ocado Group to accelerate the development of autonomous grocery deliveries for complex urban environments.

Wayve’s advanced deep learning and camera-first technology has the ability to adapt to new, unstructured, highly complex environments, without the need for pre-programming, human-designed rules, or high definition mapping.

The collaboration includes an autonomous delivery trial that will see Wayve’s technology fitted onto a selection of Ocado delivery vans and trialed on urban delivery routes. 

This trial will help Ocado explore first-hand how Wayve can handle the congested streets and challenging maneuvers that last-mile delivery technology must be equipped to navigate. 

A portion of Ocado’s existing delivery fleet will also be outfitted with Wayve’s data collection devices to provide data for training and validating Wayve’s technology.

Alex Kendall, CEO of Wayve said: “Globally, there is huge momentum to transform mobility in grocery operations right now. 

“We are focused on delivering an autonomous last mile solution to support the needs of grocery retailers everywhere. 

“Through this partnership with Ocado Group we aim to unlock autonomous delivery faster in more places worldwide.”