Starship delivery robot automates "meals on wheels"

For all the talk of drone delivery recently, there remains some pretty big technological and regulatory hurdles for the nascent technology ahead. However, robot delivery could come to us in another form. Starship Technologies has designed a robot, which was unveiled at Mobile World Congress, that rolls around on six wheels and can carry up to 20 pounds. Starship only has a top speed of 4 miles per hour, so it is meant for deliveries within a two-mile radius. The robot will need more testing and have regulatory hurdles of its own, so the future of robot deliveries is not quite here yet. It has only been tested for 700 miles so far, and Starship Technologies expects to put in about 20,000 miles of testing for six months, including testing in the UK and the US, before launching the product.

Technologically, something like Starship does not seem as complicated or far-fetched as drone delivery. The robot can, like other automated systems, stop and navigate around objects it detects. At four miles per hour, it is not going to kill anyone, either. The 20-pound limit makes it ideal for delivering small objects such as meals. It is easy to imagine a world in which Starship is loaded up with a few meals and sent to a drop-off point in an apartment complex or a similar area. The incentive for businesses is saving a lot of money on labor, and consumers get food handed over to them without having to worry about tipping the delivery man.

Some China manufacturers are already working on wheeled robots similar to this, but they are not at the same level of sophistication. Many robots manufactured in China are for industrial purposes, and makers are still catching up on the intelligent services side of things. Still, the country’s robotics industry is developing quickly, especially in the area of service robots, and is not likely to be left out of this market as it evolves.