Uber Eats customers in Japan can soon have an autonomous robot deliver their food on the streets of Tokyo.

Uber announced a partnership Tuesday between robotics firm Cartken and Japanese industrial titan Mitsubishi Electric to launch autonomous sidewalk robots that will start delivering Eats orders in parts of Tokyo beginning next month.

Japan will be the first international market to have autonomous delivery available on the Uber Eats platform. Japan, however, is no stranger to embracing robot helpers in the hospitality industry, and many popular restaurant chains have been using robot servers for years now.

Cartken’s Model C robots will be delivering the food and navigating the sidewalks of Tokyo, and the operations will be supervised by Mitsubishi Electric as part of the partnership.

Cartken’s Model C robots use AI and computer vision technologies to navigate their environments.

The sidewalk-traversing robots are designed to avoid obstacles, yield to pedestrians, and stop at traffic lights. They travel at roughly the same speed as a walking adult and are fitted with a cargo bin that is designed to keep food at an appropriate temperature during transport.

Uber Eats and Cartken first partnered to launch autonomous robot delivery services in parts of Miami in 2022, and expanded robot delivery to Fairfax, Virginia, last year.

Japan, which was recently unseated by Germany as the world’s third largest economy, has been contending with an aging population and shrinking workforce for years now that has put an outsized strain on its logistics infrastructure.

Shoji Tanaka, the senior general manager of the Advanced Application Development Center, Development Division at Mitsubishi Electric said in a statement that robot delivery services “is considered to be an effective countermeasure to the logistics crisis that will become more serious in the future.”

Tanaka said Mitsubishi has been working with Cartken to “respond to such social issues.”

“We hope that this newly announced initiative will serve as a catalyst for the spread of robot delivery services in Japan,” Tanaka added. “In the future, we will work with buildings and factory infrastructure, which is one of our strengths, so autonomous robots will be able to deliver inside various facilities.”

(SD-Agencies)

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【巨头】jùtóu titan any person or thing of great size or power

【推翻】tuīfān unseat remove from a position of power or authority

日本的Uber Eats用户很快就可以让机器人漫步东京街头给他们送餐了。

Uber周二宣布与机器人公司Cartken及日本工业巨头三菱电机合作，推出步行机器人，从下月开始在东京部分地区配送Eats订单。

日本将成为Uber Eats平台提供无人配送服务的首个海外市场。不过，日本对于机器人在餐饮业场景的应用并不陌生，许多受欢迎的连锁餐厅使用机器人服务员已经很多年了。

作为合作的一部分，Cartken的C型机器人将在东京的人行道上行走、送餐，三菱电机负责监督运营。这种机器人使用人工智能和计算机视觉技术导航。

这种步行机器人可以避开障碍物，礼让行人，并遵守交通信号灯的指示。它们的行进速度与成年人的步速大致相同，配有一个货箱，可以让食物在运输过程中保持适当的温度。

2022年，Uber Eats和Cartken首次合作，在迈阿密部分地区推出机器人送餐服务，去年又将该业务扩展到弗吉尼亚州的费尔法克斯。

德国最近取代日本成为世界第三大经济体，多年来该国一直在与人口老龄化和劳动力不足作斗争，这给日本的物流服务造成了巨大压力。

三菱电机研发部先进应用开发中心高级总经理田中昌治在一份声明中说，机器人送货服务“公认是应对未来可能更加严重物流危机的有效对策”。

田中表示，三菱一直在与Cartken合作，以“解决此类社会问题”。

田中补充说：“我们希望，这项新宣布的措施将成为催化剂，推广日本的机器人送货服务。未来，我们将与楼宇物业和工厂合作，推动机器人在工厂和楼宇内送货。这是我们的强项之一。”

(Translated by Debra)