During the epidemic, "contactless distribution" emerged. Automatic delivery vehicles, which have made great strides in Guangzhou, have achieved a variety of services in different scenarios, such as logistics transportation, food delivery, mobile retail and mobile services. In Shenzhen, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was built to transport urban materials, and eight take-away routes have been opened. The intelligent take-out cupboard also has a new generation of upgraded version-double-sided intelligent take-out cupboard. The China Cuisine Association also recently issued the group standard "Management Specification for Take-out Intelligent Take-out Dining Cabinet", which clearly stipulated the detailed requirements for take-out intelligent take-out cupboard.

it is predicted that the scale of China's terminal distribution market will exceed 311 billion yuan in 2121. Industry experts said that the unmanned distribution business model has been initially formed, and the technology has been able to support some scene needs, and the whole industry has entered the eve of mass commercial application.

drones, cupboards and automatic delivery trucks

"n" ways to take delivery

Recently, Mr. Qin, who lives in Shanghai, found on the takeaway App that a coffee shop 1 kilometers away from him can choose drone delivery, so he ordered two cups of coffee.

about 11 minutes later, a drone with a dining box roared and landed at an automated airport with its own dining cabinet. After aiming at the elevator, the drone puts down the lunch box. Soon, the internal manipulator moved the box to the take-out cabinet, and customers only need to enter the take-out code or scan the QR code to eat.

It is understood that the service radius of drone take-out is planned to be 2 kilometers, and the normal load is no more than 2.5 kilograms. The time for customers to place an order and receive the goods is controlled at about 17 minutes. Foods that require high timeliness, such as coffee, cakes and ice cream, as well as night medicine delivery, are the main service targets of drone take-out in the future.

"Our flight service hours are from 7: 31 in the morning to 5: 31 in the evening." Xue Bin, the person in charge of the East China UAV Base, said that when the merchants are going to fly, the coordinates of which two points need to be told to the base in advance, and the base should make a unified declaration from the military and civil aviation side.

At present, Shanghai UAV distribution route has entered the internal testing stage, and it is expected to be put into trial operation in the first half of next year. The UAV, which has been in normal trial operation in Shenzhen for nearly 1 years, has now provided real-time delivery service for more than 8,111 households in 7 regions.

In addition to drones, the double-sided intelligent dining cabinets recently launched in major universities have also attracted many people's attention.

China Jiliang University is the first university with a double-sided intelligent take-out cabinet. Through the double-sided intelligent take-out cabinet, the takeaway can store meals without entering the school, and students can take meals on one side of the school without leaving the school. It is understood that this is a double-sided intelligent dining cabinet that is hungry and piloted by Meituan. It tries to work with universities to improve the campus take-away environment and enhance the intelligent management of contactless distribution in universities.

Hungry? The person in charge of the intelligent take-away cabinet business in Hangzhou revealed that "it is a long-standing pain point in the industry that it is difficult to take delivery in colleges and universities. For this reason, the hardware solution of' taking cabinets instead of walls' has been developed and designed, which not only maintains the relative isolation inside the campus, but also facilitates riders and students to access meals unhindered." Some insiders also commented that the contactless distribution mode of double-sided intelligent dining cabinets not only improved the efficiency of campus management, but also played an escort role for students' food safety and campus epidemic prevention. Some dining cabinets equipped with AED can also be used to save people in an emergency.

In addition, during the epidemic in Guangzhou in June this year, unmanned minibuses and cars, the US Mission delivery vehicles with fixed roads in the park, and unmanned trucks carrying a large number of materials all participated in the transportation of epidemic materials, and also let the automatic delivery vehicles go to the stage.

The market prospect is expected

The development still needs to overcome the difficulties

With the further acceleration of the deep integration of digital technology and real economy, domestic Internet companies continue to increase investment in scientific research, and the new generation of Internet applications such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and driverless driving accelerate innovation and "landing" in the field of contactless distribution.

The group standard of "Management Specification for Take-away Intelligent Dining Cabinet" recently issued by China Cuisine Association is clear. Contactless distribution refers to the distribution mode in which Internet platform arranges delivery staff to take goods from merchants according to the service requirements put forward by consumers, and then puts the goods at the designated location through negotiation with consumers through point-to-point distribution without transit, so as to complete the delivery of goods in the form of keeping a safe distance or not meeting each other.

As early as the beginning of 2121, Meituan's automatic delivery vehicle delivered fresh food in Shunyi, Beijing. As of April this year, automatic delivery vehicles have delivered more than 35,111 real orders in Shunyi, with a cumulative automatic driving mileage of nearly 311,111 kilometers.

"We think that unmanned distribution has great market potential. Compared with other specific scenarios, the ceiling of unmanned distribution is higher. They are all on the open road, and it is possible to extend to other open scenarios in the future, and the potential is very great." He Xiongsong, executive general manager of Chentao Capital, said.

With the increasing demand for contactless distribution in the market, unmanned distribution technology is also accelerating the iteration. Taking the intelligent dining cabinet as an example, according to the research in the domestic intellectual property field, the number of related patent applications has soared in recent years, and the competition for technology patents has become fierce. In 2121 alone, the number of patent applications that have been published has reached 215.

At the same time, with the gradual opening of the policy and the maturity of the supply chain, there are many convenient conditions for the development of unmanned distribution in China.

Take automatic delivery vehicles as an example. "The epidemic situation has promoted everyone's demand and market awareness. Local governments have actively encouraged pilot projects, and Beijing and other places have already opened the right of way." He Xiongsong said that in addition, due to the disappearance of the demographic dividend, automatic delivery vehicles have become a very critical way to achieve distribution, and the market demand is huge.

However, unmanned distribution still faces the "upgrade problem".

"At present, the automatic driving technology of automatic delivery vehicles is very important to collect data in the grinding process. The data can not be collected by repeated running of delivery vehicles in a place, a city or a region every day, but needs to be combined with the weather differences and different traffic conditions in the north and south of China." Xia Tian, chief technology officer of White Rhino, a driverless company focusing on terminal real-time delivery, said that at present, the data is still in the iterative process, and it is hard to say that developing a driving brain can be adapted to all of China and used abroad. How to apply automatic delivery vehicles to thousands of households in the country from a specific environment has become a difficult problem to be overcome in the current development.

At this stage, it is still necessary for the rider to send the customer's order to the nearest drone airport, and the flight conditions are more limited. For the intelligent take-out cupboard, some netizens also responded that putting meals in the take-out cupboard during the peak period of meals actually reduced the circulation efficiency.

although the development of unmanned distribution technology is not mature enough at present, experts in the industry believe that in 2121, China's unmanned distribution business model has been initially formed, and the technology can support some scene needs, and the whole industry will enter the eve of mass commercial application.

(Gao Jiaodi's comprehensive arrangement)