Milan, Italy
Designed by Greg Lynn and his design team, “gita” is the first innovative project of Piaggio Fast Forward (PFF), the Boston-based robotics and future mobility company of the Piaggio Group.
It is a unique follow-me robot carrier, with a payload of 20 kg, designed to follow the user indoors and outdoors, at a top speed of 10 km/hour and with a 4-hour battery life.
In 2020, gita pilot programs were launched to test the new robot at Cincinnati International Airport (CVG) with a traffic of 7 million passengers per year; at Delivery Co-op, the company focused on food deliveries at the neighborhood level, based in Lexington; and at Doğan Trend Automotive, part of Doğan Group, holding based in Istanbul controlling a number of companies operating in different sectors such as, energy, industry, fuel, finance, internet & entertainment, automotive, tourism and real estate, playing a pioneering role in the Turkish market.
Piaggio Fast Forward’s gita is a first-of-its-kind following robot that was designed with simplicity in mind.
The overall form of gita expresses its direction and movement.
Its rounded shape is slippery when moving past and around people. Its spherical shape expresses its ability to spin in place.
Despite its roundness, it has a direction with a distinct front, back and sides.
The front has a sensor array with prominent lenses oriented forward and to the side to indicate the field of view that gita uses to sense both the user who it is following as well as bystanders.
Its two motors drive the right and left wheel at different speeds and directions and allow a zero turning radius; it leans forward before it takes off and leans back before it stops.
Self-balancing and its large wheels are what gives gita the ability to move quickly and nimbly enough to keep up with people.
Although gita uses state-of-the-art technology to follow people while carrying up to 40lbs of cargo, the human-machine interaction happens through the touch of just two buttons.
This low-tech interaction frees people’s hands and eyes so they can look at one another and their environment with increased awareness.
“These pilot programs are a testament to the excitement and energy that a product like gita brings to folks,” commented Michele Colaninno, PFF’s Founder and Chairman of the Board.
“The gita robot is a new tool for a new today and sits at the intersection of new urbanism, helper robots and the human mobility revolution.”
“Today robots are more acceptable and desirable than ever before for both personal use as a consumer and increasingly, at scale as an assistive device in retail, residential and commercial environments.”
“This corresponds precisely with our ideas at PFF: robotic intelligence and human beings must cooperate and develop a mutually beneficial relationship in order to create a better world for tomorrow.”
“Thanks to gita, people can walk further, faster and more frequently, doing it with more pleasure,” said Greg Lynn, Chief Executive Officer at Piaggio Fast Forward.
“We are ready to experiment the use of gita in retail, residential and commercial environments with the aim to simplify and enhance human performance.”
Designers: Piaggio Fast Forward (PFF)
Design Team: Greg Lynn, Jeffrey Schnapp, Mitchell Weiss, Naz Ekmekjian, Max Reice, Jerry Ding,
Kenan Goodnight, Jarrod Smith, Cody Chen, and Amos Ambler
Manufacturer: Piaggio Group