URF's 2025 Year-End Highlights

Dec 15, 2025
2 min read

Author: Lee St James Date Published: December 15, 2025 This news bulletin provides you with seasons' greetings from our URF team along with a year-end round-up of the latest news you need to know about PMR's and related technologies. From the examples we provide below, you'll see that robotics companies are already demonstrating their ability to deliver value -- improving public services, accessibility and liveability in urban spaces, both indoors and out!

Seasons' Greetings: Starship Robots

Starship robot with green lid, reindeer antlers

Starship robots, decorated with reindeer antlers are now delivering food for Uber Eats in Leeds, UK.

Saskia de Jongh, EMEA General Manager at Uber recently stated: “It’s so exciting that our new global partnership with Starship Technologies will first launch in Leeds, meaning we can offer local customers a fast new way to get what they need delivered ....”

We invite our readers to read this article "For the moment, there will only be 15 robots in the Uber Eats fleet for Leeds, but with the speed of the robot revolution so far, you can bet on soon seeing them, or something similar, in a city near you."

Doorstep Delivery in Switzerland: RIVR.AI

Rivr.ai robot stepping into a van — Rivr.ai robot

In September, URF member, Rivr.ai, announced they had partnered with Swiss Post and Migros Online grocery to test automated doorstep delivery in Switzerland to explore how automation can enhance doorstep delivery for parcels and groceries.

In the first trial of its kind in the UK, 2025 also saw the deployment of Rivr's 'dog' robot - working alongside human couriers to deliver parcels. As described in this article by Metro,

"The AI-powered dog has sensors, cameras, 4G and 5G wi-fi routers, two-way audio, internal navigation, and a 45 Ah, 58V battery." It can also "have an additional arm to ring doorbells and hand parcels directly to customers."

Bridging the Gap between Indoor and Outdoor Robotics

Capra Robotics is bridging the gap between indoor and outdoor robotics. Their patented chassis design offers best-in-class agility, handling everything from muddy, snowy settings to complex factory floors with ease. Full story on LinkedIn.

BLOG Post: Developing shared rules for indoor & outdoor robots: earning public trust by Francisco Javier Martin Romo, URF's European member liaison. "...the line between “indoor” and “outdoor” robotics is far thinner than we pretend."

Member News:

We are delighted to welcome Carnegie-Mellon University Human-Robot Interaction Institute as the newest academic member of URF. https://www.hcii.cmu.edu/research-areas/human-robot-interaction

We will share more news about CMU when the research project on which we are collaborating is public!

Municipal Readiness

On November 25th, our Managing Director, Lee St. James, had the opportunity to interview Craig Desjardins, from the City of Kingston, Ontario about planning for innovation deployment and how urban robots and drones can positively impact city operations. (25 min video interview on Youtube)