Estonia-based locler manufacturer Cleveron has unveiled a new delivery robot that uniquely requires no human intervention during the last mile delivery process.

While the Starship delivery robot needs the recipient to collect their goods from the machine, the Cleveron ‘Lotte’ has an arm that puts the package in a special parcel locker for the customer to pick up at a later time. The company plans to refine this to allow the Lotte to drop parcels in letterboxes outside people’s homes.

The feature means that the Cleveron machine can go head to head with human delivery personnel and ultimately start replacing them for last mile deliveries – a real turning point in delivery robot technology.

“Since the robot courier will replace human labor, which makes the last mile delivery cheaper,” said Cleveron CEO Arno Kutt. “This in turn helps e-commerce grow even more — it will be less expensive (we eliminate labor costs) and extremely convenient (the parcels are waiting for you safely in your own parcel locker).

Some estimates suggest that as much as 80% of human couriers could be replaced by robots in the coming years as automation and the drive to cut down costs in the supply chain results in technology cutting out manpower from end to end.