Meituan to build China’s first “urban low-altitude logistics center”
This week, Meituan’s self-developed drone made its debut to the public for the first time and made plans with Shanghai City to establish China’s first operation demonstration center in Jinshan District.
Meituan and Shanghai Jinshan District Government formally signed a contract to jointly build a city-grade low-altitude drone logistics operation demonstration center, to co-create the last 15-minute distribution circle within the city.
This contract is active participation in the development of drone standards, with the goal to promote the deep integration of the actual and social management branches of the unmanned aviation industry.
Puzhong Wang, senior vice president of Meituan and president of Daojia Business Group, said that as AI and other technologies continue their technological advances in recent years, the urban low-altitude flight has begun to shift from civilian filming to large-scale industrial use. The low-altitude logistics network within the city will become an important opportunity for technological innovation in the next two decades.
Meituan launched its exploration of drone delivery scenarios in 2017 and is committed to building a low-altitude logistics network for under 3 kilometers or under 15-minute deliveries.
The present research and development of autonomous flying drones, automated airports, and drone scheduling systems have been generally complete, with over 90% of the core system components independently developed by Meituan.
At the beginning of this year, Meituan’s drones completed the first delivery order task for real-life users in Shenzhen. These drones later established an “air channel” for the transportation of urban materials to distribute emergency supplies to the residents in quarantine areas of Nanshan District, Shenzhen. In June, Meituan’s drones completed more than 200,000 flight tests and over 2,500 real-life deliveries.