Self-driving delivery robots to undergo road tests in US

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Residents in California may soon find a delivery robot showing up at their door step instead of a mailman.

Set a destination, load up a package, then Robby the robot is off and rolling.

Engineers from the Robby Technologies are testing their robots that can cruise sidewalks at either walking or running speeds, with a load up to 45 kilograms.

Founded by two PhDs from MIT, Li Rui and Dheera Venkatraman, Robby Technologies has built the robots with computer vision cameras that can see 10 meters ahead in all directions.

Li Rui, co-founder and CEO of Robby Technologies / CGTN

If the robot runs into a situation where it doesn't know what to do, for example, a passerby refuses to move out of the way, it can send a message to the control center so that it can talk. If one decides to break in, an alarm will be triggered.

"Currently, the delivery cost in the US and China is pretty high, especially the last mile delivery part. That actually takes up about 30 percent of the overall delivery cost," said Li, who is also the CEO of Robby Technologies. "We see a big opportunity there to use self-driving robots."