Google experimental lab has developed an autonomous robot that can pick up books from homes. The small robot moves along pavements in Mountain View (in Silicon Valley, California), and visits houses where books are waiting to be returned.

The robot makes its round in the neighborhood near the Mountain View Library once a week. People who are living in that neighborhood can ask (via the internet) the robot to make a visit to their house. Books must be dropped into a container on top of the robot, but that’s about it. The robot is ready to continue its journey to the next place.

The robot notifies of its arrival by sending a text message to the person who ordered the pickup.

When the robot returns to the library, personnel manages the actual book return process.

What next? Well, we would like have a robot that can loan books from a library for us. The robot should have a little bit of artificial intelligence so that it knows what we like to read, so that it can surprise us with its perfect book recommendations.

If you happen to live near the Mountain View library, here are instructions for asking the bot to visit you.

Mercury News captured a video when the robot rolled along the neighborhood streets:

The specifications of the current Book Bot:

Dimensions: Length 71 cm / 28 inches x Width 45/18 x Height 81/32 (without antennas, flag for visibility, or arm for operating crosswalk buttons).
Weight: 45 kg /100 lbs. unloaded, maximum 68 kg/150 lbs. loaded.
Maximum speed: 7 kmh /4.5 mph.

ActuaLitte reported about the BookBot first.