Electric self-driving delivery robots will be tested on the pavements around Greenwich in London in spring next year, along with a couple of (unspecified) US cities. They can deliver about two shopping bags of groceries or any other goods.

The company behind the new tech, Starship Technologies, was founded by Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, who previously co-founded Skype and Kazaa.The as-yet-unnamed robots can make deliveries within five to 30 minutes of their base, which could be a designated delivery hub or retail outlet.

The six-wheeled devices are equipped with an Internet connection (presumably a 3G or 4G modem), GPS navigation, and an obstacle avoidance system powered by nine cameras. They're supposed to be driving autonomously 99 percent of the time, though they're constantly monitored by human operators. The latter can step in if there's a safety hazard, as well as talk to people around the device using a built-in loudspeaker and microphone.

The main benefit of robot delivery compared to the traditional human-powered method is much smaller delivery windows: customers will be able to choose a specific 10-minute time slot, instead of two-hour or half-day slots that are common these days.

Addressing obvious concerns that someone would definitely try to rob the robot of its contents, its creators said it's not as easy as it seems. The delivery compartment is locked at all times; only the genuine recipient of the delivery can unlock it with their smartphone.

"It's not easy to break into the robot, especially if you don't have any special tools to do it. And most hooligans on the street, they don't have special tools," said Hainla.

At the same time, the founders say the robots are built using off-the-shelf components and are quite low-cost, which allows to bring the cost of delivery down "by 10 to 15 times per shipment" compared to the current numbers.

They also reckon that land-based robots are much better for delivery purposes than flying drones, an approach that Amazon is currently trialling.

"People don't like other machines flying over their backyard where their children are playing. So there's huge social acceptance problems with the robots, with the robots that are flying," Hainla said.