Drone delivery technology is an advanced technology that uses drones for express delivery. By utilizing drones, courier companies are able to provide delivery services in remote or hard-to-reach areas, while improving distribution efficiency and reducing labor costs.
Basic situation of drones
Unmanned aerial vehicles, referred to as "unmanned aerial vehicles", are unmanned aircraft operated by radio remote control equipment and their own program control devices. There is no cockpit on the aircraft, but there are autopilots, program control devices and other equipment installed. Personnel on the ground, on ships or at the remote control station of the mother aircraft track, locate, remotely control, telemetry and digitally transmit them through radar and other equipment.
A brief description of the express drone program
The UAV uses an octocopter aircraft, equipped with a GPS automatic navigation system, IGPS receiver, various sensors and wireless signal transmitter and receiver device. The UAV has a variety of flight modes such as GPS self-controlled navigation, fixed-point levitation, and manual control, and integrates a variety of high-precision sensors and advanced control algorithms such as three-axis accelerometer, three-axis gyroscope, magnetometer, barometric altimeter, etc.
The delivery drone is equipped with a black box to record status information. At the same time, the UAV also has a runaway protection function, when the express UAV enters the runaway state, it will automatically maintain accurate hovering, and the runaway timeout will fly to the nearest express distribution point. UAV through 4G network and radio communication remote sensing technology and dispatch office and self-service express cabinet and other data transmission, real-time to the dispatch office to send their own geographic coordinates and status information, receive the command sent by the dispatching office, after receiving the destination coordinates using GPS automatic control navigation mode flight, after entering the target area to the destination express cabinet to send a landing request, the local task report and the local operation status report, after receiving the landing request response, The courier locker guides the drone to land, load and unload the parcel on the parking platform at the top of the courier locker, and perform fast charging. The UAV sends a request to the destination transceiver cabinet again after sending a request and no answer timeout, and sends a landing request exception report, a local task status report and a local operation status report to the dispatching office after three timeouts, and requests instructions. After the express drone loses contact with the dispatching office or has an abnormal failure, it will fly to the express distribution point on its own.
The development momentum and advantages of express drones
Drone delivery can not only greatly reduce the cost of distribution, but also improve efficiency and solve the delivery problem in remote areas. At present, companies including Amazon, DHL, and SF Express are testing a large number of drone delivery shipments.
At present, the UAVs used for enterprise testing are mainly quadcopter or octo-rotor, with a flight altitude of less than 1,000 meters, a flight radius of about 10 kilometers, and a load bearing of less than 10 kilograms.
From the perspective of the industry, drones are very suitable for the delivery of remote areas and urgent items, and at the same time, they can effectively improve distribution efficiency and reduce manpower and capacity costs. It is understood that the current Amazon delivery cost per order is an average of $2-8, and if drone delivery is widely adopted, the delivery cost will drop to the lowest level of about $1 per piece.
As a private express delivery giant in China, SF Express is also the most focused express delivery company focusing on drones. At present, SF Express is testing a large number of UAVs in the Pearl River Delta region, collecting flight data, and providing data support for the construction of the overall operation and commissioning system in the future. It is understood that the routes of SF UAV test sites include mountainous areas, large lakes and reservoirs, remote villages, etc.
Express drone advantages:
Solve the problem of remote delivery: Drones can traverse difficult terrain and hard-to-navigate areas to deliver packages to their destinations.
Improve delivery efficiency: Drones have a high flight speed and load capacity, which can deliver packages quickly and accurately.
Reduce labor costs: Drone delivery can reduce labor costs, especially during peak periods or when there is a shortage of manpower.
Avoid traffic congestion: Drone delivery can avoid urban traffic congestion and improve delivery speed and efficiency.
Courier drone cons:
Limited range: Drones have limited battery life and need to be recharged or replaced, which can affect delivery efficiency.
Affected by the weather: The flight of the drone is limited by weather conditions, such as wind, rain, snow and other adverse weather conditions may affect the normal flight and delivery of the drone.
Safety concerns: Drones carry a risk of falling, which can cause injury or loss to people and items.
Legal and regulatory restrictions: Countries have different laws and regulations on drone flight, and relevant regulations need to be followed to ensure legal flight and delivery.
The current situation of the express drone
With the rapid development of UAV technology and the continuous improvement of various flight performance, UAVs are playing an increasingly important role in the civilian field, especially in the field of express delivery. However, in China, due to low-altitude airspace restrictions, dense housing and other problems, it is still very difficult for UAVs to implement directly to customers, and UAVs still need to be escorted by domestic laws and regulations and policy supervision to truly enter the market.
The outlook for express drones
As an evolutionary version of express delivery, intelligent express delivery can realize automation, visualization, controllability, intelligence, and networking of express delivery, thereby improving resource utilization and productivity levels. From the perspective of the entire express development trajectory, the development of intelligent express delivery should be from traditional distribution to centralized distribution, collaborative distribution, joint distribution, and then to intelligent distribution. The drone express delivery is undoubtedly an important part of intelligent distribution, and it plays a key role in the entire smart express delivery. However, although the market prospect is optimistic about capital, there are still several thresholds to be crossed.
Industry standard policies. In recent years, although the Air Force and civil aviation departments have been exploring low-altitude airspace management, and some areas have gradually carried out low-altitude airspace open points, these are still far from enough to promote drone delivery.
Core technology. At present, more and more drone manufacturing companies are aiming at the development opportunity of drone distribution, setting up a special technical team and business department to accelerate the technical research and market exploration of express drones, but it will take time to verify the effect.
Flight Information Services. How to solve the problem of large demand for flight information caused by the large number of express drones and the frequent use of airspace is an important bottleneck restricting the development of the drone distribution industry. Therefore, in order to realize the promotion of domestic UAV distribution, the opening of low-altitude airspace, the improvement of laws and policies, the development of UAV power, navigation, obstacle avoidance and other technologies, as well as the guarantee of air traffic management and flight information services, need to be followed up and coordinated development.
At present, drone express delivery has been applied in some countries, such as China, the United States, Europe and other places express delivery companies have begun to use drones for express delivery. In the future, with the continuous progress and improvement of technology, drone express delivery technology is expected to be more widely used and developed.