# Goodbye UBER Eats - The Cute Delivery Robots are here



## Retired Senior

http://www.businessinsider.com/door...ery-guy-or-autonomous-vehicle-of-the-future-1



Melia Robinson

Mar. 24, 2017, 1:01 PM
45,231

 









Starship Technologies

The robots have arrived, and they're here to work.

On March 23, bots from Starship Technologies started taking over some of the work done by human couriers at on-demand delivery startup DoorDash. The self-driving robots ferry goods from restaurants in Redwood City, California, to customers within a two-mile radius.

Starship Technologies, a London-based robotics company, aims to make on-demand delivery more efficient by having robots complete deliveries in congested urban areas, where driving can often be a challenge. The company claims its six-wheeled couriers can finish deliveries in as little as 15 to 30 minutes, traversing the streets of Silicon Valley with relative ease.

The startup faces competition from robotics company Dispatch, whose self-driving delivery robots were spotted learning the streets of San Francisco in February.

We followed a Starship Technologies robot during its first day on the job to see how it works.

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*This is the delivery guy (or autonomous vehicle) of the future.[/paste:font]*





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*Melia Robinson/Business Insider*







*Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, cofounders of Skype and Starship Technologies, cut their teeth working on a robot that could collect rock samples on Mars and the moon.*



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*Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis are not pictured.NASA/JPL-Caltech*









*They later used the technology to develop this take-out robot. The startup raised $17 million in a funding round led by Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler in 2016.*



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*Melia Robinson/Business Insider*



*Source: Business Insider*





*We met up with a robot on its first day on the job in Redwood City's downtown center. An employee placed an order on the DoorDash app to get lasagna from The Spaghetti Factory.*



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*Melia Robinson/Business Insider*









*An algorithm built by DoorDash decides in real time if the delivery makes more sense for a human courier or a robot to complete. In this case, the restaurant was surrounded by wide sidewalks and was within a two-mile radius of the customer. The robot got the order!*



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*DoorDash*







*Since setting up shop in Redwood City in January, Starship Technologies has mapped out a delivery zone with a two-mile radius. The robots moves in straight lines along this map, at speeds up to four miles per hour.*



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*Starship Technologies*









*It has nine cameras and ultrasonic sensors, which create an imaginary bubble around it. When an unmapped object, like a person or a construction cone, enters that bubble, the robot makes a split-second decision whether to make a complete stop or skirt around it.*



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*Melia Robinson/Business Insider*



*The robot can even read traffic lights, so it knows if it's safe to cross the street.*





*During our trip, the robot arrived at a crosswalk without a traffic light. It didn't know when it was safe to cross. So the robot pinged a human at Starship Enterprises for help.*



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*Melia Robinson/Business Insider*



*The employee sees what the robot sees through its cameras and signals when it's safe to cross.*







*We also encountered a construction zone. The robot proceeded with caution, gliding over broken road and around the excavation site with ease.*



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*Melia Robinson/Business Insider*







*The robot's handler stood watch nearby. While the bots operate almost fully autonomously, they will be accompanied by humans to start so curious pedestrians can ask questions.*



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*The robot seemed to make friends wherever it went. A family with two girls asked to take a photo with it, while others snapped photos on their phones more discreetly.*



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*This is not the complete pictorial. Please continue to website...*


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## 123dragon

It exists in Washington DC. It delivered food to my door last week. They do have someone following it around to monitor the experience and educate people that see it what it is.


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## Maven

Might work when owned by restaurants in upscale neighborhoods like Redwood City, California. However, questionable for use in other neighborhoods where defenseless robot could be attacked for food inside or just for entertainment. Same problem if used citywide to replace ridesharing drivers, which operate in all kinds of neighborhoods. If accompanied by human then more expensive than human alone. If defenses added then problems with false positive attacks by robot on humans.


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## 123dragon

Maven said:


> Might work when owned by restaurants in upscale neighborhoods like Redwood City, California. However, questionable for use in other neighborhoods where defenseless robot could be attacked for food inside or just for entertainment. Same problem if used citywide to replace ridesharing drivers, which operate in all kinds of neighborhoods. If accompanied by human then more expensive than human alone. If defenses added then problems with false positive attacks by robot on humans.


I agree. In DC though in my area which is upscale, 14th and U st I don't see people trying to rob them. In addition DC is also starting to implement smart city tech:

http://wjla.com/news/local/dc-studies-smart-street-light-and-smart-trash-can-technology

Smart Cities when paired with autonomous are going to allow autonomous to navigate around. If someone tries to vandalize or steal one they can be followed by cameras all over the city and apprehended. The privacy issue is an interesting topic in smart cities, for me I don't really care but I can see how others might not like all their movement recorded.


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## Retired Senior

Maven said:


> Might work when owned by restaurants in upscale neighborhoods like Redwood City, California. However, questionable for use in other neighborhoods where defenseless robot could be attacked for food inside or just for entertainment. Same problem if used citywide to replace ridesharing drivers, which operate in all kinds of neighborhoods. If accompanied by human then more expensive than human alone. If defenses added then problems with false positive attacks by robot on humans.


You guys are right, (in my humble opinion) Upscale neighborhoods, or college campuses (Yale, MIT etc) ... ah, maybe not Yale, Yale is actually totally a part of downtown New Haven... Yale is not at all a "gated" University...

I mean, here in Bridgeport Ct, and I imagine in Newark New Jersey, the crack heads would be selling these critters to the scrap metal shops. Back in the very early 1990s, when I still worked for the City of Bridgeport, I saw a guy parked in the Jai Lai parking lot, using power tools to cut down a metal pole. Later on that day I stopped by the local scrap metal shop, and asked the owner, whom I knew, if he had received any slices of "pole" that morning....
Yes indeedy! So I imagine a robot would be considered fair game.


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## charmer37

They definitely wouldn't have that robot crap in the areas I deliver food in, People would try to steal the damn robot just like if a SD car would go in those neighborhoods and get jacked for its wheels or anything of value.


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