These autonomous robots put the special in special delivery and you might see them on a college campus near you! WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.-- How do delivery robots operate in winter? What if no one picks up the delivery? A board in West Lafayette, Indiana, has unanimously approved a pilot program bringing robotic delivery services to Purdue University, as well as a suspension of city code allowing small, cooler-sized robots to operate on city sidewalks. But first, the board members had several questions about the program from San Francisco-based Starship Technologies before it could debut in September.

This undated photo provided by Amazon shows a self-driving delivery robot that Amazon is calling Scout. Amazon is expanding the use of its self-driving delivery robots to a second state. NEW YORK – Amazon's self-driving robots will be roaming the streets of another neighborhood. The online shopping giant said Tuesday that the six-wheeled robots, about the size of a smaller cooler, will begin delivering packages to customers in Irvine, California. It comes after Amazon began testing them in a suburb of Seattle at the beginning of the year.

Amazon's self-driving robots will be roaming the streets of another neighborhood. The online shopping giant said Tuesday that the six-wheeled robots, about the size of a smaller cooler, will begin delivering packages to customers in Irvine, California. It comes after Amazon began testing them in a suburb of Seattle at the beginning of the year. Amazon AMZN, 1.29% said the robots, which are light blue and have the Amazon smile logo stamped on its sides, are able to avoid crashing into trash cans or pedestrians. Still, a worker will accompany the robots at first. Other companies have been testing similar delivery robots on college campuses, delivering burgers or soda to students.

Tokyo-based venture ZMP Inc. may begin field testing a self-driving delivery robot in August intended as an alternative to aerial delivery drones as Japan grapples with a growing labor shortage. The box-shaped CarriRo Delivery robot, which is 133 cm long and 109 cm high, is designed to run on sidewalks and carry loads of up to 100 kg, ZMP said. "Our delivery robot is more suitable than drones when it comes to delivering heavy products like food items," said ZMP Chief Executive Officer Hisashi Taniguchi. The company has teamed up with sushi delivery firm Ride On Express Co. to test a prototype of the autonomous vehicle on private property. The robot, which is equipped with cameras and sensors and can steer itself at a maximum speed of 6 kph, selects delivery routes on its own using a pre-loaded map. It can be controlled remotely when needed, according to ZMP, which is also developing self-driving car technologies.

Food delivery marketplace Just Eat has continued its innovation push this week with a showcase of some of latest foodtech innovations at an event in Shoreditch. The London-based business held its'The Future Now - Redefining Food Discovery' event at Village Underground in Shoreditch today (Tuesday), showing off a raft of innovations including virtual and augmented reality innovations, AI chatbots and self-driving delivery robots. Technology on display included harnessing VR to feed into analytics and research for Just Eat's restaurant partners to utilising Microsoft's Hololens technology to display menu options as a buffet from which customers are able to choose their order. Elsewhere, AI also made its presence felt with Just Eat's customer care and Facebook chatbots providing a conversational approach to customer support and recommending restaurant choices depending on a user's mood and preferences. Just Eat has been on a serious innovation push this year, launching its own foodtech accelerator at the beginning of August and trialling Starship Technologies' self-driving delivery robots, which were also on show at the event.

Airborne drone delivery is still more PR than public reality, but wheeled, self-driving delivery bots could be trundling down a sidewalk near you sooner than you think. London-based Starship Technologies, which counts Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis among its founding team, is launching a broad testing phase of its autonomous delivery bots in parts of the UK, Germany and Switzerland starting this month. Starship's relatively small wheeled delivery bots have been in testing in select cities in 12 countries during the last nine months already, but this expansion of the trial will mark the first time the robots are being tested in actual delivery scenarios. That means they're bringing on partners to provide the delivery inventory, including food delivery players Just Eat, and London-based Pronto.co.uk. German retailer Metro Group and parcel delivery company Hermes will also take part in the pilot, which will span five cities providing deliveries to actual paying customers.