Interview: Inside Serve Robotics -- How Autonomous Delivery Robots Navigate Cities

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Anthony Cowley, Staff Engineer at Serve Robotics, about how autonomous delivery robots work in real-world city environments. Serve Robotics builds self-driving sidewalk delivery robots that use AI, sensors, and real-time decision-making to navigate urban streets and deliver food and other items without a human driver. We break down: • How autonomous robots navigate cities using lidar, cameras, GPS, and onboard compute • How sensor fusion and AI help robots detect obstacles and make decisions in real time • What it takes to build safe, reliable robotic systems in crowded urban environments • How fleets of delivery robots are deployed, monitored, and updated at scale • Real-world challenges like weather, crowds, navigation failures, and edge cases • How robotics companies work with city regulations and public infrastructure • The difference between robotics research (Penn GRASP Lab) and production systems Serve Robotics operates thousands of delivery robots across multiple cities, partnering with platforms like Uber Eats to power last-mile autonomous delivery. If you’re interested in robotics, self-driving systems, AI, or the future of delivery, this episode gives a clear look at how these systems actually work in production. 00:00 Meet Dr. Anthony Cowley 01:04 What is a Functional Roboticist? 03:33 What Serve Robotics Does 05:18 How the Business Model Works 06:49 Anthony’s Role on the Robots 08:36 Sensors and Perception (Lidar, Cameras, GPS) 09:53 Safety and Testing Pipeline 10:52 Software, Mapping, and Autonomy Stack 15:16 Cloud Updates and Tracking 17:26 Real-World Edge Cases (Crowds, Weather) 20:11 Launching in New Cities 21:55 Regulations and Working with Cities 23:46 Vandalism and Public Interaction 25:44 Scaling Autonomous Delivery 28:21 Research vs Real-World Robotics 31:31 Lightning Round ________________________ 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗠𝗲 • LinkedIn:   / brandonkrakowsky   • Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative: https://ai-analytics.wharton.upenn.edu 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀 • Interviews:    • Learn the Technology: Interviews   • How To Videos:    • Learn the Technology: How To Videos   • Spotify: https://bit.ly/47JxADO 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗠𝗲 • Instagram:   / learnthetechnologywithbk   • TikTok:   / learnthetechnologywithbk   • X (Twitter): https://x.com/LearnTechWBK • GitHub: https://github.com/learnthetechnology... 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗮 • Intro to Programming with Python and Java: https://www.coursera.org/specializati... • How to Use Data: https://www.coursera.org/specializati...