ZMP's food delivery robot ready to pick up the slack in graying Japan

Mix the rise of e-commerce in Japan with a chronic labor shortage and a graying society and what do you get? "I'm delivering delicious food," announced CarriRo Deli, a robot the size of a cooler box that was navigating a South Korean apartment complex in April, bringing food and drinks to residents during a trial of its "last-mile" delivery service. The robot's maker, Tokyo-based ZMP Inc., has already held a number of delivery trials at university campuses and elsewhere in Japan and is looking for partners to help it develop the business further. Aside from having a 50 kg cargo capacity and a speed of 6 kph, the robot speaks short phrases like "hello" and "thank you" and has LED eyes, a feature aimed at making it more lifelike and engaging when interacting with people. "It would be scary if a simple box was running around places," ZMP Manager Hiromasa Iwano explained at a gathering in Tokyo in late July, adding the company took into account how people would react to the robots. "We wanted to create a robot that is well-received, socially." ZMP CEO Hisashi Taniguchi said at the same event that CarriRo Deli was the world's only autonomous delivery robot with eyes when it was revealed last year, noting that although eyes had long been a feature industrial designers avoided, others are now following suit.