Your next Saturday night takeaway could be brought to you by a robot after a major food delivery company announced plans to use automated vehicles to transport meals.

Europe's biggest online takeaway food company Just Eat has partnered with Starship Technologies, makers of slow moving pavement droids, to deliver food with robots on the streets of London later this month.

"Nobody has ever done deliveries with land-based robots," said Allan Martinson, the chief operating officer of Starship, a two-year-old Estonian company created by former Skype co-founder Janus Friis and developer Ahti Heinla.

The robot courier is a six-wheel automated trolley that can travel up to 4 mph for roughly 10 miles. It uses a GPS signal and nine cameras to navigate and avoid obstacles.