No, flying drones can't deliver things to you in the city, but walking drones sure can!
Picture This
Cute little boxes with wheels quietly glide along a path, deftly avoiding pedestrians and weaving through bike racks to deliver coffee and snacks. While flying drones are still tangled in regulatory red tape, their grounded cousins are already hard at work.
Safer by Design: Unlike their airborne counterparts, ground-based delivery robots don’t risk falling from the sky or tangling with helicopters. That alone makes them a much safer choice in densely populated areas. These rovers travel at low speeds, and often operate on campuses, business parks, or places with controlled environments and pedestrian-friendly layouts. If something goes wrong, the consequences are more like a dropped pizza than a citywide safety review.
Already in Action Companies like Starship Technologies have deployed thousands of sidewalk drones on U.S. college campuses and parts of Europe. These autonomous bots use GPS, cameras, and machine learning to navigate sidewalks and crosswalks, stopping automatically for obstacles. According to Starship, their fleet has completed over five million deliveries since lunch launch.
A Realistic First Step As city regulators remain cautious about flying drones buzzing through the airspace above playgrounds and downtown cores, ground-based systems offer a practical, tested alternative.
Business-Ready? Almost. Local businesses could easily use them to service nearby customers. Consider a coffee shop sending out lattes to local offices or a pharmacy dispatching prescriptions to seniors a few blocks away. With low maintenance costs and no need for a human driver, these robots offer a scalable, neighborhood-friendly option that can help local shops compete with bigger delivery platforms.
For now, wheels are winning the delivery drone race.
