For more than a decade, Japanese experts have been saying that the era of Japan's labor shortage is coming. After shouting for more than ten years, the wolf came, and the wolf really came. Japan, which has a declining birthrate, has officially entered an era of "10 million labor force shortages!" ”
The number of people is decreasing, while the volume of express delivery business is increasing. For this reason, autonomous delivery robots have been highly anticipated to solve social problems in logistics such as the shortage of courier personnel and create new businesses. In order to support the social implementation of robot delivery services, the Japanese government has been working to establish new rules for low-speed, small-scale autonomous delivery robots to travel on roads.
According to Japan's Jiji News Agency, with the official implementation of Japan's revised Road Traffic Law, autonomous delivery robots that will be remotely controlled from April this year will officially take up work on public roads.
Unmanned delivery machines, as the name suggests, do not have a driver, locate the location with a camera or GPS (Global Positioning System) and automatically deliver items to the distribution office. Although robots are not omnipotent, stable quality and work efficiency have been favored by many enterprises, and even robot-based warehouses have appeared.
Previously, autonomous delivery robots have carried out demonstration experiments in residential areas and business areas to deliver food and daily necessities, which relevant people believe will be the "new backbone" in the logistics industry.
It is reported that in a demonstration experiment conducted by the unmanned delivery robot "Deriro" in Chuo-ku, Tokyo, last December, it successfully delivered takeaway burgers to an office building about 500 meters away from the store at the speed of walking quickly as an adult on the main road.
The "Deriro" unmanned delivery robot, jointly developed by robot development companies ZMP and ENEOS Group, stores map data of nearby sidewalks and is equipped with six cameras that can sense pedestrians and recognize the color of traffic signals.
The first experiment with the robot was conducted about two years ago, and the delivery range is 1 km north-south and 2.7 km east-west. It has been done three times so far. Electrically powered robots have a total of four standby stations at two charging points nearby and can provide door-to-door delivery services to about 17,000 households nearby.
In the second demonstration experiment conducted last February over a full month, two robots delivered to 6,000 households, receiving an average of dozens of orders a day, and 85% of customers were between the ages of 20 and 49. From the feedback of these customers, many people are optimistic about the hygiene and safety of robot delivery services, and prefer to be delivered by robots.
It is also convenient to operate, using your smartphone to select a product on the ordering website, set the delivery address and time, and submit the order. When the robot loaded with goods arrives at the specified address, the automatic voice system notifies by phone call or SMS. The user enters the password, can open the door of the delivery robot, pick up the goods, during the delivery process, the location of the robot and the estimated time of arrival can be checked on the special website.
According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, five prefectures have completed demonstration experiments on autonomous delivery robots.
For the aspect of unmanned distribution, many companies are currently engaged in this. Some car companies are working to use self-driving cars to deliver goods without a driver; Some logistics companies are deploying drone delivery to improve product distribution efficiency. On February 18 last year, eight companies, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, ZMP, TIS, Tier lV, Japan Post, Panasonic, Honda, and Rakuten Group, established the Robot Delivery Association to improve the convenience of people's lives by popularizing delivery services using autonomous delivery robots.
In the future of declining population, unmanned delivery robots will play a huge role not only in Japan, but also in countries around the world. Let's wait and see.
#Technology##Robotics##Japan##Immigration##移民服务