Vespa's maker creates a robot butler

Here's the situation: You walk out of the supermarket with three bags in each hand and it already feels like your arms are gonna fall off. We've all felt like a pack mule at some point, and one company is hoping to change that with its personal cargo robot, Gita.

The bot was created by Piaggio Fast Forward, a sister company of Piaggio Group, most famous for creating the Vespa. Piaggio Fast Forward describes Gita (pronounced "jee-ta") as an "autonomous vehicle that extends a person's cargo carrying abilities."

The vehicle is 26 inches tall and can carry up to 40 pounds of goods at speeds as high as 22 mph. It can either follow a human operator or move about autonomously in pre-mapped areas. A number of sneak-peek videos on the company's YouTube page show potential uses for Gita including picking up and delivering a package, carrying someone's purchases at a market, and even walking a dog.

According to a company press release, Gita will debut on Feb. 2 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at which time more details about the robot will be made available. Piaggio Fast Forward says it will deploy Gita in a number of different business-to-business pilots in the near future with an eye toward future consumer applications.