If you're walking down the street in Miami-Dade County and see a robot pass you by, don't worry — it's just out to make a delivery.
Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER) partnered with Cartken, a robotics company headquartered in Oakland, California, to bring food delivery robots to the area. Right now the robots will deliver items from selected business in Dadeland via Uber Eats, with plans to expand to additional cities in Miami-Dade next year.
Cartken co-founder and CEO Christian Bersch said the sidewalk delivery robots can help alleviate traffic congestion by taking food delivery vehicles off the road. The devices can also "help local merchants increase delivery capacity, and bring consumers fast, convenient, and emission-free deliveries," he added.
The partnership is Cartken'sfirst formal agreement with an on-demand delivery app outside of college campuses. The companies did not say how many restaurants or robots are being deployed for the pilot project.
Cartken's six-wheel robots are equipped with sensors and cameras to avoid collisions and guide itself to its destination. The delivery vehicles can carry 24 pounds of items in its cargo storage and can deliver within a radius of several miles.
Uber Eats customers selected for the autonomous delivery will be notified through the company's app. When the delivery arrives, customers will need to meet the robot on the sidewalk outside of their location and unlock it with their phone to grab their order.
Uber Eats has made several moves to enter the autonomous delivery space in an effort to cut labor costs while also responding to growing demand for last-mile delivery of goods like groceries. In addition to Miami, the company is involved in a delivery pilot project in Los Angeles through a partnership with Serve Robotics. In September, it signed a 10-year commercial deal with Euro, another delivery robot startup, to transport items to customers in Houston, Texas and Mountain View, California.
“Our partnership with Cartken marks another important milestone for our efforts in automated and autonomous technology and will provide greater reliability and affordability to Miami merchants and consumers," said Noah Zych, global head of autonomous mobility and delivery at Uber.
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