Niantic’s Pokémon GO Mapping Used to Power Coco Robotics’ Delivery Robots

Niantic’s mega-popular AR mobile game Pokémon GO has been discovered to have been used to power Coco Robotics’ delivery robots, as they are now deployed in the US and Europe.

According to a recent report from MIT Technology Review, Coco Robotics is partnering with the Niantic Spatial team. Niantic Spatial is deploying its Visual Positioning System (VPS) technology, which is said to be able to pinpoint locations down to a few inches. This technology is said to be adopted by Coco Robotics to help with positioning and navigation alongside GPS.

What makes this especially poignant is that the VPS technology crowdsources mapping data taken from Niantic’s roster of Pokémon GO players. More than 30 billion images have reportedly been captured by players and are claimed to be powering how Coco Robotics’ delivery robots can map the environment around the robot. In 2016, Pokémon GO had a peak monthly active player base of around 230 million. While that number has waned, there are still around 50 million active users.

For companies like Coco Robotics, which leverage accurate mapping data for its autonomous couriers, improved location services over GPS are required. In this case, the data Pokémon GO can provide is quite useful. VPS determines the pinpoint location of where someone is based on their surroundings. 3D models of the real world were frequently being scanned into Niantic’s system. Not only is location metadata being recorded but camera angles, time of day, weather, player movement, and more.

Since 2016, players have been wandering their neighbourhoods and across cities, using their phone cameras while searching for and capturing Pokémon. All of this data has been captured by Niantic and, unbeknownst to the install base, used for navigational services. “It turns out that getting Pikachu to realistically run around and getting Coco’s robot to safely and accurately move through the world is actually the same problem,” Niantic Spatial CEO John Hanke said in his interview with MIT Technology Review.