To put the hard work our busy bots have achieved into perspective, 10 million kilometers is equivalent to driving to the moon and back more than 12 times. No other autonomous delivery service has achieved this, and we are incredibly proud of our team to reach this feat. This milestone distance is further than any other company in the industry, and more than six times that of the 1 million mile mark recently announced by international self-driving car developers, Waymo and Cruise.

But what really sets us apart is the level of autonomy that our robots have achieved. We were recently reviewing some data and were amazed to find one of our robots had completed 24 customer food deliveries in a row, 100% autonomously over a period of 16 hours, without any human intervention or oversight.

Today, our robots have become a part of everyday life for many people. Building on the success of offering deliveries from hundreds of stores through our own Starship app, we now offer ‘Delivery as a service’ (DaaS) to global partners who would like to make their own deliveries more sustainable, low cost and fun. We’re seeing a lot of interest in using our technology because last mile delivery is currently so inefficient and expensive. We’ve proven that our technology has the potential to revolutionize last-mile delivery, which is currently one of the most inefficient and expensive parts of the delivery process.

This milestone represents an incredible achievement and shows that our service is truly leading the way in the autonomous delivery industry. Recently, we shared our robots have made over four million autonomous deliveries, crossing an average of 140,000 road crossings per day. With over 2,000 robots rolling around worldwide, it’s only a matter of time before we cross 20 million kilometers!

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SAN FRANCISCO | October 31, 2022

Halloween is here and that means candy, costumes, and roaming pumpkins. If that last one has you scratching your head, you may not have visited one of the many college campuses and cities across the US, UK and Europe where ‘Pumpkinbots’ are making deliveries. Courtesy of Starship Technologies, the world’s leading provider of autonomous delivery services, these orange bots are making deliveries for a limited time.

Numerous sightings have already been reported, but many PumpkinBots have escaped and remain unaccounted for. Starship Technologies is offering a reward for anyone who can spot one of the fleeing PumpkinBots and help ensure its safe return.

Pumpkinbots are an elusive breed. Unlike Ghostbusters, you can’t call them specifically, but one of them may show up with your food when you place an order through the Starship Food Delivery app, which is available on iOS and Android.

Charlie Hollway, Marketing Manager at Starship Technologies, said: “Late last week several robots slipped off their charging cables during a routine safety update on a stormy night and travelled out into the wild. But unlike all other Starship robots we’re unable to track these ones to the nearest inch, so we’re appealing to the public to help us locate them.”

Charlie added: “Joking aside, we want people to enjoy some fun with the robots and celebrate Halloween, so Starship is offering a reward to anyone who spots one of our elusive PumpkinBots.”

“We’re giving away a free robot delivery promo code to anyone who reports a sighting in their neighbourhood and shares a photo to prove the discovery with the hashtag #pumpkinbot.”

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We map all of our delivery areas in advance, so the robots know which routes they can — and can’t — use.

The robots are then equipped with a suite of sensors and cameras which are constantly understanding the environment around them. The sensors allow the robot to follow the mapped route and can detect moving objects up to 90 metres away. This means they only cross roads when it is judged to be safe to do so and, as such, they might wait a little longer just to make sure.

If, however, a vehicle, car or pedestrian is detected nearby, the situation may be assessed to be unsafe and the robots will continue to wait for the right opportunity. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

On occasion, you may even see a robot start to cross, but then quickly reverse back again. Don’t worry, this is normal behaviour in order to wait for a safe time to cross and happens if a car or other moving object is detected.

Not only do we want the robots, pedestrians and road users to be safe themselves at all times, we also want the robots to be positive role models when it comes to crossing roads safely.

So what should you do if you’re driving and a robot is waiting at a crossing?

Zebra crossing:

• You’re not expected to wait for a robot to cross at a zebra crossing, but please continue to obey all local road safety laws for pedestrians.

Traffic lights/Pelican crossings:

• Robots will generally cross when the pedestrian light is green, or when it is deemed safe to do so. Please continue to obey all local road safety laws for pedestrians.

Unmarked road crossings:

• You’re not expected to wait for a robot to cross at unmarked road crossings, but please continue to obey all local road safety laws for pedestrians.

Thank you for embracing Starship robots in your communities — we love being part of them!

Team Starship x

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First, let’s take a step back and look at the rules of the road. These have existed for decades, and something any road-going vehicle has to follow — including autonomous cars. Amongst other things, they have to stay in lane, indicate before turning and keep an appropriate braking distance. Pavements on the other hand are a different environment, so understanding the surroundings and identifying/anticipating pedestrian behaviour is much more difficult — as a pedestrian, let alone a robot!

Over the past 8 years, Starship has been working to solve this challenge with the robots, learning how to behave on the pavement, becoming a good pavement user and an accepted part of the community.

And robots don’t just roam anywhere. Before we launch a new Starship food delivery location, the pavements will be ‘mapped’ in advance, ensuring robots stay within designated areas and know which routes they can — and can’t — take.

The robots then use a combination of cameras, sensors, artificial intelligence and machine learning to travel around these routes — and, importantly, to navigate around any people, animals or obstacles.

You can find out more about this here:

How will the robot react?

If you meet a Starship robot on the pavement, the robot will identify that there’s someone in front of it and act accordingly.

Depending how far away you are from the robot, it will then either slow down and change course to navigate around you, or come to a stop as quickly and safely as possible. On narrow pavements, where there may not be an easy way for two parties to pass easily, the robot will reverse and move out of the way.

How did the robot cross the road?

Road crossings are the most complex for robots. This is a time when fast-moving vehicles can approach from different directions. Humans (most of the time) have an amazing ability to judge when it’s safe to cross by analysing hundreds, if not thousands, of data points automatically — and sub-consciously. For example, how fast a car is driving, whether there’s time to cross, etc. A robot has to make similar decisions, but without the hundreds of thousands of years of evolution humans have had. It’s an incredibly difficult engineering task!

So if you’re a pedestrian who’s crossing the road and you see a robot waiting, don’t worry — it’s just assessing the situation and working out when it’s safe to cross. There’s no need to give it special treatment — please continue to cross as normal. The robot might even start crossing with you!

However, if you’re passing a traffic light controlled/pelican crossing and a robot is waiting, it would really appreciate it if you could press the button to change the lights; and it might even say “thank you” from the robot for doing so! Looking ahead, this could soon be a thing of the past — in some areas, our robots are now communicating with traffic light systems, so a button doesn’t even need to be pressed — speeding up your deliveries even more!

There’s a robot stuck, what should I do?

Sometimes, a robot might just wait somewhere, stationary. This isn’t uncommon for a short time — it’s likely just thinking, or having a quick power-nap between deliveries…but don’t tell Mission Control that!

Of course, there might be times when a robot does get into a little difficulty. Whilst the technology is constantly learning and improving, we know they can occasionally fall off the kerb, or get stuck in a tight space. If you’re able to, the robots always appreciate a helping hand! You can also contact our customer services team either via our app, or the website chat functionality to let them know.

We hope you enjoy seeing the robots out and about. Don’t forget to give them a wave!

Team Starship x

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We appreciate, though, that seeing robots isn’t ‘the norm’ for many people, so we wanted to shine more of a light onto how the robots work.

Starship robots are over 99% autonomous, having completed over 3.5 million deliveries globally. With a suite of cameras and sensors, they navigate — on sidewalks/pavements — along pre-mapped routes and can detect people and obstacles in their path.

The size of the robot is purposefully small, so they don’t take up too much space on pavements, yet they’re deceptively spacious and can still deliver up to 3 bags of shopping. Perfect for those top-up grocery shops or a takeaway with friends!

All robots are fitted with a bright orange, illuminated flag giving visibility to both pedestrians and drivers, along with front and rear lights for easy detection in the dark. You might also notice the lights flash to indicate the direction it’s about to change direction or turn.

And don’t worry, just because the robots are autonomous, they aren’t taking over. Each one is programmed to continue learning about its surroundings, in order to optimise delivery journeys and driving behaviour, but there’s also always a human on-hand, should the robot ever need it.

In these instances, the robot will send an alert back to Starship ‘Mission Control’ (aka our Operations team!) and a remote human assistant will help the robot out in its time of need. One person can oversee tens of robots at the same time, confirming a robot’s decisions and helping out if required. This is something that becomes increasingly less as time goes on — we started with two or three people needing to monitor every single robot, but now someone can oversee far more robots on their own.

How do I order?

Starship robots are already delivering in over 30 locations across 6 countries and it’s easy to get started!

• Download the Starship Food Delivery app (available for both iOS and Android) — if we deliver in your area, simply find your nearest merchant and place an order.

Our friendly robots love being out and about in the community and look forward to delivering to you soon!

Team Starship x

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