Delivery Robots Are Finding a Home Here

• Starship Technologies expands its fleet of delivery robots to more US university campuses, adding Georgia Tech, Cal Poly, University of New Mexico, and several others to its list of over 50 locations.

• The delivery robot startup has found a niche in alleviating staffing shortages experienced by food merchants and has introduced self-order kiosks and wireless charging pads for its robots as part of its expansion.

• Smaller delivery robots have seen an easier time achieving scale over the past few years, compared to SAE Level 4 delivery robots designed for longer distances, which are still seeing competition from Uber Eats and analogous services.

In a short span of time, delivery robots have gone from a sci-fi prop to being a common sight on college campuses, with several startups embracing the walkable environments largely devoid of vehicle traffic to deliver food to buyers just a few minutes away.

And the robot revolution is showing no signs of slowing.

With the kickoff of the school year, Starship Technologies has added several major universities to the list of some 50 campuses where it maintains operations. Starting with the new semester, Starship will launch at Georgia Tech, Cal Poly, University of New Mexico, Prairie View A&M, and Southeast Missouri State.

What is driving this rush of delivery robot adoption?

"Universities have had to get creative to meet food demand while dealing with staffing shortages," Starship says.

The staffing shortages—a familiar phenomenon in the pandemic-era food service industry—are so significant that the company is expanding Starship Marketplace, which includes mobile pickup and self-order kiosks.

For the moment, this service is expected to reach about a third of the campuses where Starship has operations, including George Mason University, Oregon State University, James Madison University, North Carolina A&T, and Wichita State University.

"As the staffing challenges continue to stretch campus dining resources, our new Starship Marketplace will add more options for students and make staffing more efficient," said Chris Neider, VP of business development at Starship Technologies.

"Students can order food from a kiosk or pick up their orders when that works better for them."

Starship is also continuing to roll out wireless charging for its robots, thus bypassing the need for a fleet manager to constantly plug in the robots at their home bases. The company says that by the start of the fall semester, some 75% of its campus locations will feature wireless charging pads.

But not all types of delivery robots have seen rapid gains in geographic coverage in the past few years.

Starship has been an early mover, with its robots specializing in shorter routes in busy campus towns and pedestrian-friendly city centers, which also tend to be sidewalk-friendly spaces.

So achieving scale quickly has been one of Starship's calling cards, especially in the era of app menus and mobile payments. The hassle of making change with the delivery person is now almost an anachronism.

By contrast, larger SAE Level 4 delivery robots the size of small cars that can share the road with traffic have faced a very different path, while now facing plenty of competition from the same cast of app-based services including Uber Eats, Instacart, DoorDash, and others, still staffed by gig workers covering much larger distances.

Developers of larger road-going robots have also had to navigate SAE Level 4 regulations in each state as part of their certification—a high bar in most states—which presents its own financial barriers.

Operators of smaller sidewalk robots, for their part, have also faced issues including theft and vandalism, but by most accounts this has been a manageable problem for now.

With the company's robots now reaching 1.5 million students, it's not too difficult to imagine small delivery robots becoming just another part of college life in the near future.

Will delivery robots eventually replace most delivery workers, or will the robot industry hit a ceiling when it comes to market share? Let us know what you think in the comments below.