Robot food delivery on the Missouri S&T campus

Starship Technologies rolled ­­out its robot food delivery service last Thursday on the Missouri University of Science and Technology campus in Rolla.
Starship’s fleet of 16 autonomous, on-demand robots is ready to deliver from all campus eateries. S&T’s students, faculty, and staff can now use the Starship app, iOS, and Android, to order food and drinks from local retailers to be delivered anywhere on campus, within minutes. The service works in conjunction with the student meal plan.
To get started, users open the Starship Deliveries app, choose from a range of their food or drink items, then drop a pin to where they want their delivery to be sent. They can then watch as the robot makes its journey to them, via an interactive map. Once the robot arrives, they receive an alert, and can then meet and unlock it through the app. The delivery usually takes just a matter of minutes, depending on the menu items ordered and the distance the robot must travel. Each robot can carry the equivalent of about three shopping bags of goods. Starship Technologies operates commercially on a daily basis around the world. Its zero-emission robots have made more than 4 million autonomous deliveries, traveled millions of miles, and make more than 140,000 road crossings every day. The robots use a combination of sophisticated machine learning, artificial intelligence, and sensors to travel on sidewalks and navigate around obstacles. Computer vision-based navigation helps the robots to map their environment to the nearest inch. The robots can cross streets, climb curbs, travel at night, and operate in rain and snow. A team of humans can also monitor their progress remotely and can provide assistance if needed.