Logistics unicorn Postmates is launching a fleet of delivery robots in the US

Over the past few years, food delivery has grown into a multibillion-dollar market where tech giants such as Amazon.com Inc. compete with heavily funded startups for orders. One of the latter, Postmates Inc., hopes to gain an edge by enlisting robots to assist its human couriers. The delivery startup, which is valued at $1.2 billion, today unveiled an autonomous rover called Serve that it plans to use for short-distance trips. Postmates will roll out its first robotic fleet in Los Angeles with an eye toward expanding into other major U.S. cities over the next year. The Serve rover stands just over three feet high and can travel up to 30 miles per charge with as much as 50 pounds of goods in its compact cargo bay. Under the hood, a complicated array of sensors collect environmental data to help the robot safely navigate busy cities. Serve maps out its surroundings with a combination of cameras, GPS, sonar and LiDAR sensors much like those used in self-driving cars.