The autonomous courier bots belonging to Starship Technologies have completed more than 50,000 commercial deliveries worldwide, the company recently announced.
The service first launched in 2018 in the UK, and its little robots have traveled more than 200,000 miles since.
Starship’s self-driving delivery robots can carry packages, groceries, or take-out from stores within a 4-mile radius via requests from a mobile app. Like most delivery services these days, you can follow the robot’s journey on your phone.
Since the ‘bots are small, weighing no more than 100 pounds and moving at a walking pace, they’re pretty unobtrusive on the sidewalk and can easily find their way.
While 50,000 deliveries is not exactly a mind-boggling number, especially when compared to FedEx’s 15 million shipments per day, it’s still exciting.
Autonomous driving and AI is a growing field, and robotic delivery systems are on the rise. From the driverless delivery vehicles such as Amazon Scout and Robomart, to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) delivery systems such as JD.com, there’s a plethora of autonomous delivery systems in the works worldwide.
Reference- Clean Technica, Starship Technologies website