Since drones are all the rage, inventions for ground deliveries hardly take off – after all, we have people who drive cars and scooters to do that for us, right?

Wrong.

Piaggio – best known for their super iconic Vespa – has kept the focus on two wheelers on the ground, creating a new robot under a division wing called Piaggio Fast Forward.

Their first project is called the Gita, a “two-wheeled personal cargo bot straight out of the Star Wars droid factory,” explains Mashable.

Tasked with delivering groceries and carrying our stuff, imagine having one loaded with drinks and the likes, ahem, at a festival?

When it’s empty, you can just order it to return to the tent:

The Gita’s designed for a different use than sky-bound delivery drones — its directive is to follow a human, or to move autonomously along pathways it’s already traveled. There are already some similarly self-driving droids from Starship Technologies roving the streets making Postmates deliveries in a few cities.

The Gita can serve the same purpose — but the bot looks to be focused on personal cargo hauling for the moment. It’s more of an assistant than a free-roving bot, although it can move independently and avoid obstacles in real time using its built-in sensors and cameras, which it uses in “Follow” mode to lock on to its human guide.

Here’s Gita walking a dog:

The division’s COO, Sasha Hoffman, isn’t concerned about the potential risk, explaining that Gita is covered with cameras and sensors and always knows where it is, stating it would be “the dumbest thing in the world to try to steal or break into.”

But let’s move over to Piaggio’s casual description of the robot for more details:

The orb-shaped Gita is 26 inches tall and can carry loads up to 40 pounds, with a storage volume of about 2,000 cubic inches. Its battery can last up to eight hours of continuous use at walking speeds — but it dies quicker if you really push it up to its 22 miles per hour max speed if you’re literally running late somewhere or riding a bike.

The lid has a fingerprint-enabled security lock, along with a touchscreen to program its movements. Security might be a concern if the Gita is in autonomous mode without a human guide — a cargo bot moving on its own is practically an invitation to brazen thieves.

Real life street tests are still to come, with Piaggio rolling the Gita out over the next six months. In the mean time you can just get your hands on their original creation, the Vespa, and roll the streets looking cool AF.

Better yet, if you pop us an email, we will totally hook you up with a discount. #Winning.

[source:mashable]