ANN ARBOR, MI -- It’s a bird. It’s a plane. Actually, it’s a robot delivering food.

Ann Arbor-based Refraction AI created the Rev-1, a self-driving robot that delivers food from restaurants to customers. Matt Johnson-Roberson and Ram Vasudevan, University of Michigan engineering professors founded the group in May 2018 to serve a market need at a lower price.

Food delivery companies often charge restaurants up to 30% of the total meal cost, Johnson-Roberson said, but the Rev-1 service is expected to be “well under." The company is currently working with Ann Arbor restaurants like Miss Kim and Belly Deli during the pilot.

“Everything from potholes to the weather are really the things that drive what we think are going to be big technological innovations around deploying vehicles in ways that they’re not being done right now,” Johnson-Roberson said. “One of the big focuses with this technology is around building a vehicle that doesn’t take the same approach as everyone else.”

The Rev-1 operates on the road or bike lanes and uses 12 cameras and sensors to look for features on roads, buildings, trees and bushes to navigate. It also functions with potholes and when roads are covered in snow.

The 100-pound device has taken beatings from potholes and even bounced a couple feet in the air on Washington Street, Johnson-Roberson said. But if it ever faces a complex situation, such as being stuck in a pothole or otherwise, a teleoperator in the downtown Ann Arbor office can take control.

Here is how it works:

“We use a mix of autonomy and teleoperators,” Johnson-Roberson said. “(Our) ultimate goal is to kind of have a relationship between the vehicles and several teleop drivers so one driver can control four or five vehicles,” adding that using a full-size car that may double park on the side of the road and has emission concerns is “inefficient.

“We’re hoping this will be transformative for the way that we move goods around dense urban areas. We like to reduce congestion. A large amount of traffic is from deliveries …or ride hailing drivers. We want to figure out a way of addressing that to make cities more sustainable and more effective."

Miss Kim tested the service over the summer and is working to sign a contract with the company for an official launch, said Ji Hye, the restaurant’s managing partner.

“We’re pretty much ready on our end. With places like GrubHub, the driver comes and picks up the food but with the AI delivery, we bring it out to the machine and load it up for them,” Hye said. “Delivery companies charge a significant fee to the restaurants, these are not as high,” adding Refraction AI is looking to charge Miss Kim 15% to 20%.

The restaurant faced a challenge during the experimental phase, when a customer was missing an item. Hye emphasized it was due to human error.

“They ordered a whole bunch of food ... there were about four or five bags and one of the bags was left out,” Hye said, adding she personally delivered the remaining item.

However, the delivery was slightly faster than human delivery, due to the machine making less stops along the way, Hye said.

“With the other delivery services, a driver might have to stop at two different stops ... making the person wait longer. I don’t think that stuff will happen with the AI,” Hye said.

The vehicles move at 10 to 12 miles per hour and cost $4,000 to build. They are primarily used on roads with speed limits at 20 to 25 miles per hour.

Refraction AI has a fleet of five vehicles but deploys three, and anticipates to expand to 20. Johnson-Roberson envisions a fleet of 200 in the next 18 months in three cities, eyeing Boston, Palo Alto, California; Madison, Wisconsin or Austin, Texas. Long term, he hopes to deliver goods beyond food.

“Autonomous delivery, I think, is going to be a really interesting market. In terms of where the ceiling is, we’re incredibly far from it. It’s an $80 billion market today. There’s so much unmet demand so it is really really difficult for using human drivers to sort of meet the demand and customer expectations around what delivery looks like today,” Johnson-Roberson said.