Uber Eats, Mitsubishi Electric, and Cartken Launch Autonomous Food Delivery Robots in Tokyo

Uber Eats Japan, in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric and Cartken, is set to revolutionize food delivery in Tokyo with the introduction of autonomous sidewalk robots. This innovative venture, expected to commence by the end of March 2024, will see the deployment of Cartken's "Model C" robots for food delivery in select parts of Tokyo, marking a significant step forward in delivery methods. Shintaro Nakagawa, General Manager of Uber Eats Japan, expressed enthusiasm for the initiative, highlighting the addition of robots to their existing delivery methods as a move towards offering customers and merchants fun surprises and high reliability.

The "Model C" robots, designed to travel at adult walking speeds of up to 3.4 mph, are equipped with a 27-liter insulated cargo bin to ensure the appropriate temperature for food and other items during delivery. Advanced AI models and localization algorithms enable the robots to navigate and detect objects efficiently, with built-in privacy measures to mask pedestrians in the robots’ camera footage.

This venture into Japan's market with autonomous delivery robots on the Uber Eats platform follows successful implementations in the U.S., showcasing a significant advancement in making food delivery more accessible and sustainable. Anjali Jindal Naik, Co-founder and COO at Cartken, and Shoji Tanaka, Senior General Manager at Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, both emphasized the potential of robot delivery to address future logistics challenges and the role of this initiative in promoting robot delivery services in Japan. With plans to integrate these autonomous robots into various facilities, leveraging Mitsubishi Electric's expertise in buildings and factory infrastructure, this collaboration aims to redefine the future of food delivery in Japan.