Robot.com, a San Francisco-based company, has unveiled a new four-legged delivery robot called R-dog, designed to overcome one of the biggest obstacles in autonomous delivery: stairs and kerbs that wheeled robots cannot cross. Unlike conventional sidewalk delivery robots, which tend to get stuck when the terrain changes, R-dog combines wheels on the end of articulated legs, allowing it to roll efficiently on flat ground while navigating steps and uneven surfaces when needed. This could widen the range of locations suited to robotic delivery, including campuses and apartment complexes, while also opening a new advertising channel, since the robot's dog-like design is intended to make it approachable enough to display ads in public.

The robot was unveiled on 11 August and is built to cover the "final stretch" to a customer's door, roughly the last 330 feet, where most delivery failures occur. Its cargo compartment, which forms the bulk of its body, can carry multiple items including stacked food orders and e-commerce packages, and features an unattended auto drop-off system that releases the order once R-dog reaches its destination before it moves on to its next job. The robot's friendly, tail-equipped design is intended partly to make people comfortable interacting with it in public, which the company sees as important given plans to use it as a moving advertising platform.