Rules governing the use of food delivery robots remain to be seen across the US. But major food businesses are investigating the possibilities already. In the latest deal, Yelp Eat24 has begun testing delivery by robot in partnership with Marble in select San Francisco neighborhoods.
TechCrunch spied Marble’s delivery robots, stickered with a Yelp Eat24 logo, earlier this month. But the companies announced their robot delivery service officially today.
Marble is one of a handful of ventures developing ground-based robots that can navigate autonomously to a customer’s address. Their machines look like a large kitchen appliance crossed with a Mars rover.
Users order as they normally would through the Yelp Eat24 site or app. They are asked if they’re cool with robot delivery. If they opt in, they get a pin code texted to their phone, which they can use to unlock the robot’s cargo bay when their Marble delivery arrives. After retrieving their food, they close the door and the robot returns to Marble HQ or another restaurant.
Matt Delaney, CEO and cofounder of the San Francisco startup said, “We’re starting with meals, but think our robots will be useful for everything from groceries, to pharmacy and parcel delivery in the long run.” Marble’s robots are designed to be “courteous in an urban setting,” Delaney added.
With on-board lidar, cameras and ultrasonic sensors, as well as Nvidia’s Jetson TX1 AI supercomputers, Marble’s robots perceive the environment around them. They can operate day or night, using high-res, 3-D maps of the sidewalks, buildings and more in the neighborhoods where the company offers its services.
Structurally, the entire back section of the Marble delivery robot can be swapped out. While Marble hasn’t built this feature yet, it plans to someday offer “temperature control,” turning its robots into a kind of roving refrigerators or…