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Self-driving robot delivery startup partnered with Just Eat clocks up 10,000 miles

Starship Technologies, the London-headquartered self-driving delivery startup, has announced its robots have now clocked up 10,000 miles as part of an extensive worldwide testing programme.

The business, which has been testing the technology for the past year, has partnered with big European firms such as Just Eat, Hermes and Mercedes-Benz to offer the autonomous delivery of items including food, groceries and parcels.

Created by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla Janus Friis in 2014, Starship has developed a range of autonomous robots that can navigate busy city streets to deliver items over short distances.

According to Starship’s Chief Executive, Ahti Heinla, the tech firm’s fleet of delivery robots have clocked up almost the same amount of miles in their first year as Google’s self-driving cars in their inaugural 12 months.

With tests taking place in over 16 countries and 56 cities, the robots themselves have come into contact with more than 1.7m people and the firm said early signs had been positive that pedestrians and self-driving robots can co-exist peacefully on the nation’s pavements.

According Allan Martinson, who is Chief Operating Officer at the startup, overall public perception had ranged from neutral to positive, with 70% of people either ignoring the robot or unfazed by its existence.

Martinson commented: “Public acceptance and positive social engagement with the delivery robots are incredibly important to us. From our 10,000 miles of testing the robots have experienced thousands of different interactions with the public.

“We’ve seen everything from children trying to feed our robot bananas, to an elderly gentleman asking if the robot can walk his dog! Most important above all else is we’ve found the delivery robots have been accepted by humans.”

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