Uber Eats customers in Japan can soon have an autonomous robot deliver their food on the streets of Tokyo. Uber announced a partnership Tuesday between robotics firm Cartken and Japanese industrial titan Mitsubishi Electric to launch autonomous sidewalk robots that will start delivering Eats orders in parts of Tokyo beginning next month. Japan will be the first international market to have autonomous delivery available on the Uber Eats platform. Japan, however, is no stranger to embracing robot helpers in the hospitality industry, and many popular restaurant chains have been using robot servers for years now. Cartken’s Model C robots will be delivering the food and navigating the sidewalks of Tokyo, and the operations will be supervised by Mitsubishi Electric as part of the partnership. Cartken’s Model C robots use AI and computer vision technologies to navigate their environments. The sidewalk-traversing robots are designed to avoid obstacles, yield to pedestrians, and stop at traffic lights. They travel at roughly the same speed as a walking adult and are fitted with a cargo bin that is designed to keep food at an appropriate temperature during transport. Uber Eats and Cartken first partnered to launch autonomous robot delivery services in parts of Miami in 2022, and expanded robot delivery to Fairfax, Virginia, last year. Japan, which was recently unseated by Germany as the world’s third largest economy, has been contending with an aging population and shrinking workforce for years now that has put an outsized strain on its logistics infrastructure. Shoji Tanaka, the senior general manager of the Advanced Application Development Center, Development Division at Mitsubishi Electric said in a statement that robot delivery services “is considered to be an effective countermeasure to the logistics crisis that will become more serious in the future.” Tanaka said Mitsubishi has been working with Cartken to “respond to such social issues.” “We hope that this newly announced initiative will serve as a catalyst for the spread of robot delivery services in Japan,” Tanaka added. “In the future, we will work with buildings and factory infrastructure, which is one of our strengths, so autonomous robots will be able to deliver inside various facilities.” (SD-Agencies) Words to Learn 相關詞匯 【巨頭】jùtóu titan any person or thing of great size or power 【推翻】tuīfān unseat remove from a position of power or authority 日本的Uber Eats用戶很快就可以讓機器人漫步東京街頭給他們送餐了。 Uber周二宣布與機器人公司Cartken及日本工業巨頭三菱電機合作，推出步行機器人，從下月開始在東京部分地區配送Eats訂單。 日本將成為Uber Eats平臺提供無人配送服務的首個海外市場。不過，日本對于機器人在餐飲業場景的應用并不陌生，許多受歡迎的連鎖餐廳使用機器人服務員已經很多年了。 作為合作的一部分，Cartken的C型機器人將在東京的人行道上行走、送餐，三菱電機負責監督運營。這種機器人使用人工智能和計算機視覺技術導航。 這種步行機器人可以避開障礙物，禮讓行人，并遵守交通信號燈的指示。它們的行進速度與成年人的步速大致相同，配有一個貨箱，可以讓食物在運輸過程中保持適當的溫度。 2022年，Uber Eats和Cartken首次合作，在邁阿密部分地區推出機器人送餐服務，去年又將該業務擴展到弗吉尼亞州的費爾法克斯。 德國最近取代日本成為世界第三大經濟體，多年來該國一直在與人口老齡化和勞動力不足作斗爭，這給日本的物流服務造成了巨大壓力。 三菱電機研發部先進應用開發中心高級總經理田中昌治在一份聲明中說，機器人送貨服務“公認是應對未來可能更加嚴重物流危機的有效對策”。 田中表示，三菱一直在與Cartken合作，以“解決此類社會問題”。 田中補充說：“我們希望，這項新宣布的措施將成為催化劑，推廣日本的機器人送貨服務。未來，我們將與樓宇物業和工廠合作，推動機器人在工廠和樓宇內送貨。這是我們的強項之一。” (Translated by Debra) | 