People who order their food online in Washington D.C. and Silicon Valley may soon notice a different sort of delivery driver: a robot.

The deployment of autonomous delivery robots is part of a trial involving Estonian company Starship Technologies, a startup founded by Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, and food delivery companies Postmates Inc. in Washington D.C. and DoorDash Inc. in Redwood City, California.

Startship’s six-wheeled delivery robots have a maximum speed of 4 miles per hour, come with a capacity of three grocery bags of food and weigh around 50 pounds when fully loaded. The robot duplicates the role of a delivery person, complete with visiting a restaurant to pick up the food, then delivering it to the customer.

While the idea of delivery robots sounds futuristic, for the trial each robot will be accompanied by “handlers,” employees that accompany the robot who are able to intervene should the robot decide to stray from its dedicated role. According to DoorDash, the test of the robots is to see whether they can provide the speed and service customers come to expect while also exploring how customers interact with the robots and learning how the robot works with restaurant operations.

“We see robot deliveries as a unique complement to the existing Dasher community, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Stanley Tang said in a blog post. “Since Starship’s robots have a smaller carrying capacity and drive on sidewalks, they are better suited for carrying a small meal down the street, rather than a few pizzas.”

Noting that the robots may not fully replace humans, Tang added that the company expects to use the robots “to deliver smaller, short-distance orders that Dashers often avoid, thereby freeing up Dashers to fulfill the bigger and more complex deliveries that often result in more money for them.”

Starship was most recently in the news after raising $17.2 million in a round led by Daimler that included Shasta Ventures, Matrix Partners, ZX Ventures, Morpheus Ventures, Grishin Robotics and Playfair Capital.

Image courtesy of Starship