Patent ID: 10303171

Abstract:
Autonomous ground vehicles (“AGVs”) containing ordered items travel (e.g., from materials handling facilities, etc.) to pickup areas (e.g., on a street, in a parking lot, inside a store, etc.) where users may retrieve the ordered items from the AGVs. In various configurations, an AGV may have a single storage compartment or may have multiple storage compartments, and multiple AGVs may congregate at a pickup area which may include various facilities/services for the AGVs (e.g., a charging station, a common control station for the AGVs, etc.). Multiple AGVs at a pickup area may be arranged in a particular configuration (e.g., according to a particular order, stacked, etc.), and the configuration may be changed (e.g., when a new AGV arrives and/or when an AGV departs, such as after an ordered item is retrieved from an AGV which then leaves the pickup area to return to a materials handling facility, etc.).