Technical iteration accelerates the initial formation of business model. Is unmanned distribution expected to become the norm?

During the epidemic, "non-contact distribution" appeared. The automatic delivery truck that has made great strides in Guangzhou has realized a variety of services in different scenarios, such as logistics transportation, food delivery, mobile retail and mobile services. In Shenzhen, drones have been built to transport urban materials, and eight take-away routes have been opened. There is also a new generation of upgraded smart takeaway cabinets-double-sided smart takeaway cabinets. China Cuisine Association also recently issued the group standard "Management Specification for Take-away Intelligent Take-away Tableware", which clearly stipulated the detailed requirements for take-away intelligent take-away Tableware.

It is predicted that the terminal distribution market in China will exceed 300 billion yuan in 20021year. Industry experts said that the unmanned distribution business model has taken shape, technology has been able to support some scenarios, and the whole industry has entered the eve of large-scale commercial application.

Drones, sideboards, automatic delivery vehicles

"n" ways of take-out

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

About 10 minutes later, a drone with a lunch box roared and landed at an automated airport with its own dining cabinet. After aiming at the elevator, the drone put 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 does not exceed 2.5 kilograms. The time from placing an order to receiving goods is controlled at 17 minutes. Coffee, cakes, ice cream and other foods with high timeliness requirements, as well as medicine delivery at night, are the main service targets of drone takeaway in the future.

"Our flight service time is from 7: 30 a.m. to 5: 30 p.m." Xue Bin, head of East China UAV Base, said that when merchants want to fly, which two points need to be notified to the base in advance, and the base will declare them uniformly from the military and civil aviation aspects.

At present, the Shanghai UAV distribution route has entered the internal testing stage and is expected to be put into trial operation in the first half of next year. The UAV, which has been put into normal trial operation in Shenzhen for nearly 1 year, has provided real-time delivery service to more than 8,000 households in 7 regions.

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

China Ji Liang University is the first university with a double-sided intelligent take-out cabinet. Through the double-sided intelligent take-out cabinet, take-out can save meals without entering the school, and students can pick up meals at the school side without leaving the school. It is understood that this is a double-sided smart dining cabinet piloted by Hungry and Meituan. It tries to cooperate with universities to improve the campus take-away environment and strengthen the intelligent management of non-contact distribution in universities.

Hungry? The person in charge of the smart take-out cabinet business in Hangzhou revealed that "the difficulty of taking out food in colleges and universities is a long-standing pain point in the industry. The hardware solution of "replacing the wall with cabinets" developed and designed for this purpose not only maintains the relative isolation inside the campus, but also facilitates cyclists and students to take meals without barriers. " 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 sideboards 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, American 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, which also brought automatic delivery vehicles to the front desk.

The market prospect can be expected

Development still needs to overcome difficulties.

With the further acceleration of the deep integration of digital technology and real economy, domestic Internet companies have continuously increased their investment in scientific research, and the new generation of Internet applications such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and driverless driving have accelerated their innovation and "landing" in the field of contactless power distribution.

The group standard of "Management Standard of Take-away Smart Dining Cabinet" recently issued by China Cuisine Association is clear. Non-contact distribution refers to the distribution mode that the Internet platform arranges the delivery staff to pick up the goods from the merchants according to the service requirements put forward by consumers, and through point-to-point distribution without transit, the goods are placed in the designated place after consultation with consumers, so as to complete the distribution of goods in the form of keeping a safe distance or not meeting each other.

As early as the beginning of 2020, Meituan's automatic delivery vehicle delivered fresh food in Shunyi, Beijing. As of April this year, automatic delivery vehicles have delivered more than 35,000 actual orders in Shunyi, with a cumulative automatic mileage of nearly 300,000 kilometers.

"We believe that unmanned distribution has huge market potential. Compared with other specific scenarios, the ceiling of unmanned distribution is higher. They are all on the road to openness, and may be extended to other open scenes in the future. The potential is very great. " He Xiongsong, executive general manager of Chen Tao Capital, said.

With the increasing demand for non-contact distribution in the market, unmanned distribution technology is also accelerating the iteration. Taking the smart 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 also become fierce. In 2020 alone, the number of published patent applications reached 205.

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 an automatic delivery truck as an example. "The epidemic has promoted everyone's demand and market awareness. Local governments actively encourage pilots, 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 realize distribution, and the market demand is huge.

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

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

At this stage, the delivery of meals by drones still requires the rider to send the customer's order to the nearest drone airport first, and the flight conditions are limited. For the smart take-out cabinet, some netizens responded that putting meals in the take-out cabinet during the peak meal period actually reduced the circulation efficiency.

Although the development of unmanned distribution technology is not mature enough at present, experts in the industry believe that the business model of 202 1 China unmanned distribution has been initially formed, and the technology can support some scene requirements, and the whole industry has entered the eve of large-scale commercial application.

(Gao Jiaodi comprehensive arrangement)