A small autonomous robot from Starship Technologies just made a splash in front of the Washington, DC, City Council.
The interesting thing about Starship Technologies is that they are designing a relatively small autonomous vehicle designed for delivering small packages, instead of a full-fledge self-driving car.
Although self-driving cars get most of the press, a lot of autonomous robotics work is being done with other types of robots. Some are designed to work on factory floors, others are designed to run on specified bus routes, others are designed to deliver packages.
Our current conception of a vehicle is largely one of an all-purpose transportation system, because: a) all vehicles need human drivers, and b) it is difficult to switch vehicles on an as-needed basis.
What I am seeing is that technology is rendering both of those constraints obsolete. So it makes sense that we will start to see much more customized vehicles, and also vehicles that we never would have imagined in our more constrained environment.
David Silver 