People sit at home, coffee comes up in the sky. Recently, The Jinshan District of Shanghai publicly said that it will pilot the drone delivery service, and within the year, Shanghai citizens will be able to taste the coffee sent by the drone.
Smart delivery man for the "last mile"
This June, SF also launched a new express delivery service in Shenzhen piloted - drone same-city express delivery.
SF said that the general knight delivery takes 1 hour, and the drone only needs 13 minutes to complete, and can send up to 10 kilograms of items at a time.
Of course, the drone delivery has not yet reached the level of "window to window" in science fiction, or the courier picks up the package, gives the drone to the drone delivery point near the destination, and then delivers it to the courier.
Drones deliver packages, drones transport epidemic prevention materials, drones deliver milk tea... With the intelligent "delivery staff" to solve the "last kilometer" of logistics and distribution, air logistics channels have been set up in scenarios such as epidemic containment areas, complex terrain and mountainous areas, and distribution at the end of the city, which has attracted much attention.
During the epidemic, Guangdong Province carried out drone delivery services for nucleic acid test samples, and the delivery efficiency increased by 200%. Compared with other items, the overall weight of the test sample is light, while the drone delivery is usually for small pieces (less than 5 kg) to carry, and there is no manual contact during transportation, and it can be "on call" 24 hours a day.
In fact, the concept of "drone logistics" was in flames a few years ago.
Amazon started its drone delivery project in 2013 and completed its first commercial delivery service in the UK in 2016. At that time, many people felt that the era of drone delivery was coming soon, and there was a wave of drones.
To this day, drone delivery is still only experimental, and has not ushered in a flashpoint.
Recently, though, the track is speeding up.
Meituan also launched a drone takeaway pilot in Shenzhen last year, focusing on takeaway delivery within 3 kilometers, and completed 30,000 real orders in one year. Meituan also landed China's first low-altitude logistics operation center in Jinshan District, Shanghai, building a 15-minute urban distribution circle. Moreover, Meituan set up its own UAV research and development team a few years ago, not only at the aircraft design level, but also in the core components.
The above is the city end distribution drone, commonly known as "small aircraft", mainly multi-rotor and vertical take-off and landing drones, with a load capacity of 5 to 10 kg. In addition, there is a larger regional logistics drone, the load capacity can reach 1 to 5 tons, the range can reach 1000 kilometers, can complete the cross-regional long-distance emergency drugs, fresh and other logistics distribution.
In January this year, SF's Feng bird technology became the first enterprise that can carry out tonnage load and long-haul regional logistics UAV operating license.
Industry insiders believe that 2022 is the first year of commercial operation of China's regional logistics UAVs.
Compared with SF, JD Logistics has greater ambitions and proposes to build a three-level UAV logistics system of terminal distribution, regional logistics and trunk logistics.
Drone in the air vent?
It can be said that the era of drone logistics is coming.
This means not only a change in the logistics industry, but also an acceleration of drones in professional-grade applications.
We know that the civilian drone market includes both consumer and professional grades.
Consumer drones are essentially a big toy for drone enthusiasts or aerial enthusiasts;
Professional-grade unmanned aerial vehicles are used to replace people's work, used in geographical mapping, agriculture, forestry and plant protection, power inspection, public security and fire protection and other fields.
At the beginning, everyone was mainly doing professional-level drones, and they were not optimistic about the consumer market. After all, how much imagination can you imagine doing drones for individual enthusiasts? And it is this misjudgment that has left a huge market for DJI.
The entire drone industry has shifted its focus from the professional level to the consumer level because of the rise of DJI.
Consumer-grade drones have become the main growth point of the civilian drone market, while professional-grade drones have developed relatively slowly.
At present, the three major scenarios with the most applications of professional-level UAVs - agriculture, forestry and plant protection, power inspection, and geographic mapping, the market size is relatively limited. At least, there is no comparison with the logistics industry.
It is conceivable that if drones are applied on a large scale in the field of terminal distribution and regional logistics,
The professional drone market will usher in a spurt of growth.
The popularity of logistics drones means that in addition to higher technical requirements, professional-grade drones also have to cut the cost into cabbage prices.
Is it possible? It's possible. In fact, a large part of the civil UAV industry chain coincides with the mobile phone industry. The communication chips, sensors, camera devices, batteries, etc. inside the drone are very similar to mobile phones.
If the smart car is a mobile phone plus four wheels, then it can be said that the drone is a mobile phone that can fly.
In addition to the cost breakthrough, the popularity of 5G has also cleared the way for the outbreak of professional drones. With 5G, the remote control signal can be directly converted to a 5G signal, which can be remotely controlled thousands of miles away to achieve low latency in the millisecond level, which greatly broadens the application scenarios of professional-grade drones.
At present, the employment situation is grim, the UAV application technology major, as one of the characteristic majors, has a broad space for development in the job market from the perspective of the employment situation in recent years.
The drone field is extensive, and the relevant talents are insufficient, resulting in a wide range of employment areas and high salaries for employees in the industry. Unmanned aircraft application technology professionals can be engaged in the research and development, production, application, teaching, training and other units of unmanned aircraft research and development, production, marketing, flight, ground handling and other related work, and can find jobs in the fields of agricultural plant protection, electric cruise, film and television shooting. The daily salary of a skilled player in this industry is 3,000 yuan.
To commercialize drone delivery in the mainland as soon as possible, it is also necessary to follow up in a timely manner on policy improvement and legal and regulatory updates. The Shenzhen Bureau of Justice issued the Administrative Measures for Drones for Citizens of Shenzhen (Draft for Comment) in October last year, which clearly stipulates the logistics and distribution of drones in cities. This is also one of the reasons why SF and other companies are piloting drones in Shenzhen.
Professional-grade drones seem to have ushered in the mouth, will it take off?
The scientific powerhouse will continue to pay attention.
END
Author: Su Feng
Editor: Guo Ling
Reviewer: Gong Zimo
Vision: Long Hao