Domino's develops robot for pizza delivery

Domino's is looking at robots to make deliveries in Australia. Its autonomous delivery vehicle built in collaboration with Australian technology startup Marathon Targets, according to Domino's, is the first of its kind. It incorporates much military robotics tech, but it has been built to deliver fresh to the residents of Queensland.

DRU, though still in the prototype stage, had been busy as the company worked with the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads to ensure it met all the requirements to hit the road.

It incoroprates LIDAR, the same technology utilised by self-driving cars, to identify the surrounding environment and comes with built-in GPS tracking technology that synced with Google Maps. It looks much like Starship Technologies' eponymous delivery robots, which would soon hit the streets of London.

According to Lifehacker Australia, the robot's first deliveries were made in a number of restricted streets permitted by the local transport authorities. It was locked to prevent people from snagging some fresh pizza, so when it arrived at its destination, customers needed to enter a mobile code that opened DRU's insulated storage (which has both hot and cool compartments).

The robot was unveiled on Thursday at a special event in Brisbane by company executives.

''We improvised, we explored, and we discovered that this audacious idea could actually become a reality,'' the company said in a promo video.

The robot is designed to travel on bike paths or footpaths and is capable of reaching speeds of up to 12 mph. However, it was not clear how far the robot would travel to deliver a pizza.

A locked compartment popped up to reveal hot and cold chambers that held a customer's order. The customer could get deliveries using a security code sent to the customer's phone.

''We are proud to also be part of this world-first innovation in pizza-delivery technology,'' Marathon said in a statement.

Marathon and Domino's Australia have dubbed the DRU ''the world's first autonomous pizza delivery vehicle,'' but it is only a prototype for now.