As much as our life is now full of mindblowing technological advances, there is still much to be amazed by. Today I’d like to talk about three unique technologies you can only find here in Northwest Arkansas.
The unique technologies implemented in Northwest Arkansas include autonomous vehicles used for delivering groceries around the area. In Rogers and Bentonville, there’s also drone delivery right to your home. NWA also experiments with using airplanes for public transportation.
Some of these are gradually expanding to other areas, while others are still exclusive to NWA. Read on to learn more about the impressive technology of Northwest Arkansas and how it transforms our daily lives.
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Autonomous Driving Vehicles
You may already know that three of the biggest companies in the world are located right here in Northwest Arkansas: Walmart, J. B. Hunt, and Tyson. One of the most important pieces of technology currently being worked on and unique to Northwest Arkansas is autonomous driving vehicles.
Surely we know that Tesla’s been building their fleet of similar vehicles, and Waymo has been driving around cabbies, so the technology keeps developing. But the exciting thing that has been around in Northwest Arkansas is that they’ve been experimenting with using autonomous vehicles to deliver groceries.
They’ve been going around Northwest Arkansas, Bentonville specifically, and autonomously delivering groceries to people’s homes for about two years. In fact, now they’re finally expanding past Northwest Arkansas into Kansas and other areas.
So if you live outside of Arkansas at the moment, just know that this is a technology that Walmart is working on. They will continue to expand it to other states, but for the time being, possibly for the next couple of years, it’s gonna be local to Northern Arkansas and very close areas.
It’s exciting to see Walmart, a big supply chain company that produces and ships a lot of products, invest in such technologies as autonomous vehicles. If you are in the Northern Arkansas area, you can see it firsthand: it’s easy to spot their autonomous vehicles driving around delivering products in Bentonville.
Learn more about Walmart’s deal with Canoo and how they’re integrating artificial intelligence into their delivery process in my blog post.
Also, I have a 3-day itinerary that can help you decide what activities to do if you’re overwhelmed by everything Northwest Arkansas has to offer.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a foodie, a sports person, a sightseer, or want to spend quality time with your kids; I have something for you. Check out the link below to learn more:
https://www.allthingsnwa.com/3-day-itinerary-northwest-arkansas
Drone Delivery
Drone delivery services to our houses, which we’ve had for a couple of years, are number two of the technology you’ll probably only see in Northwest Arkansas. However, so far, only two locations in Northwest Arkansas have the drone delivery service: Farmington and Pea Ridge.
The Farmington one actually drops it into your backyard with a big drone. The other one in Pea Ridge is more like an airplane effect: they slingshot it off the back of a Walmart, and it flies over your house and drops a product.
They have expanded those services dramatically over the last couple of years in Northern Arkansas. So if you live in Rogers, Bentonville, or anywhere around, there’s a good chance you have drone delivery service right to your home.
If you’ve been in the area, you might have seen some drones flying around. It is truly amazing that they’ve managed to work it out directly with Arkansas regulators to produce the first realistic drone service integrated right into Walmart that delivers to people’s homes.
To use this service, you just go right to Drone Up, which is the company around here that manages drone delivery, and then it integrates right into the Walmart app. So you get deliveries sent right through the app, and it is incredible to see how effectively everything functions together.
Walmart’s a big investor in Drone Up and also in Zipline, which is the company that manages drone delivery in Pea Ridge. Seeing big companies around here experiment with such futuristic ideas and being the beneficiaries of all that new technology is one of the most exciting things about living in Northern Arkansas.
Loving this? we also have a part 2 for you: 5 new businesses in NWA
Wild Planes and Airplanes
And last but certainly not least, this time not specific to Walmart, is how the problem of public transportation is being solved in NWA. In my articles and videos, I have mentioned that one of the most significant weaknesses of Northern Arkansas is the public transportation system.
It doesn’t mean there’s no public transport in NWA, but it’s definitely not the strongest thing around here. You won’t see many buses on the street moving down their routes and picking people up around the city.
Of course, some could argue that’s a good thing, especially for our environment. Still, creating a transportation system to ensure efficient mobility for crowds of people is a pressing issue. Solving this problem requires a lot of resources: adjustments in infrastructure, bigger roads, investments, and so on.
So, one way they’re trying to do this is by improving the biking system. Everything’s integrated within the pathways, and excellent conditions for bikes are ensured. That’s one alternative transportation method they’re developing, yet it’s not the one I’m here to discuss.
The other thing they’re trying to do, which is actually starting to work, goes back to the UP Summit. It is a yearly event here in Northern Arkansas that is focused entirely on aviation and how to basically transport people in the air.
The idea is to try and develop a system that could use airplanes and not vehicles in our traditional understanding of public transportation. In Fayetteville and Bentonville, you can see some wild planes they’re experimenting with, trying to figure out how to shuttle people around the area versus always using roads.
They are really trying to push the envelope of how to use public transportation and upgrade it instead of investing in traditional means of transport like buses or similar. If you go past a field around the area of Northern Arkansas, you have a good chance of seeing these air vehicles they are developing that will potentially be integrated into our public transportation system.
If you’re interested in learning more about the technologies that are being developed and are expected to appear in Northern Arkansas, check out this article, where I discuss it in more detail.
Final Thoughts
There are several unique, fascinating technology pieces implemented in Northern Arkansas, largely because some of the biggest companies in the world are located here.
Thanks to the investments from Walmart, autonomous driving vehicles and drone delivery services have been around for the last couple of years. In addition, the local UP Summit is working on integrating air vehicles into the local public transportation system.
