Meet Digit, the walking robot that could one day replace your postman.

The Ford company has teamed up with US-based startup Agility Robotics to create a robot and self-driving car dream team.

The motoring giant is joining the likes of Amazon and FedEx in the race to make robot deliverymen.

While Amazon and FedEx’s robots though have wheels, Ford is creating a fully walking humanoid robot.

Earlier this year, Amazon unveiled the Amazon Scout, an electric hamper on six giant wheels that would push the world into the age of robotic delivery systems.

Then came FedEx’s SameDay Bot, a mobile delivery bot that autonomously glides from location to location.

Enter Digit. Boasting a bipedal design (meaning that it walks on two legs), it is built to look like a human and to move like one.

Built out of lightweight material, this smart bot can lift packages up to 18kg.

And thanks to its humanoid design, Digit can walk up and down stairs, uneven terrain, and react to being bumped without falling over. It can even push open doors.

But unlike the Amazon and FedEx bots, Digit doesn’t work on its own.

To reduce weight, all the technology needed for scanning and processing information about terrain is housed within a self-driving car that carries the robot.

Outfitted with a LiDAR and a few stereo cameras, Digit itself has just enough sensory power to navigate through basic scenarios, Ford explains.

If it encounters an unexpected obstacle, it can send an image back to the vehicle and have the vehicle configure a solution. The car could even send that information into the cloud and request help from other systems to enable Digit to navigate, providing multiple levels of assistance that help keep the robot light and nimble.

Ford’s long term plan is to launch a self-driving taxi service (rumoured to launch in the next two years). It would also double as a self-driving delivery service.

As Ford puts it: “The robot taxis take around customers, while making brief stops for Digit to do its work.

“A ride-hailing trip could double as a delivery service, dropping off packages in between transporting passengers.”

The big advantage the Ford-Agility delivery bot has over its rivals is accessibility.

Majority of homes not accessible to wheeled robots

“Only a very small percentage of residential properties in the US are wheelchair accessible,” Dr. Damion Shelton, CEO and co-founder of Agility Robotics, recently told Digital Trends.

“Assuming that this is a reasonable proxy for accessibility by wheeled ground vehicles in general, this means that the overwhelming majority of homes are not accessible to wheeled delivery robots. The one commonality that we know about all delivery locations today is that they are, almost without exception, accessible to pedestrians.

“We aim to have our robots in human environments, working with humans and around humans, potentially in crowded spaces.

“An upright biped is going to better handle human interaction, going through a door and turning a corner to climb stairs, (as well as) moving its balance around to manipulate a package onto shelves that were built for human access.”