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The day after the mid-year sale of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com Inc., a company drone took off from a playground in Xi & # City 39; year to deliver one of the orders in a football box to a village in the mountains to the south.
The six-rotor gear is one of 40 JD.com designed to reduce delivery times for items such as smartphones and food in remote areas where ground transportation is too expensive or too slow.
JD.com is a racing company from around the world that develops unmanned aerial vehicles with the strength, range and reliability needed to deliver large-scale goods and solve the costly problem of "passers-by". What distinguishes China's efforts is its ability to assemble all the other parts needed for UAV deliveries, including regulation, infrastructure and the world's largest e-commerce market.
And so that all those who work together need data.
Last year, the Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) authorized JD.com and SF Holding Co, the country's largest express delivery company, to send parcels per drone in some rural areas.
The idea is to build a network that includes not only small drones for final delivery, but a whole system, including large, fixed-wing, fixed-wing aircraft taking off from small airports or landing strips. to transport cargo between warehouses.
The major advantage of China is the market. The country has both advanced drone technologies and millions of consumers living in remote areas difficult to reach, sometimes impossible to reach, by truck. China had more than 590 million "rural" residents by the end of 2017, according to the statistics bureau.
"People who live in mountainous areas hard to reach by land transport also have the right to shop!", Said Cui Zheng, supervisor of the JD drone program in the north-west of China. "We give them the same buying experience, the same price, by flying drones."
A JD.com drone Inc. drops a parcel during a parcel delivery demonstration on the company's drone test site at Xi'an. – Bloomberg
The race for drone deliveries in China is fueled by competition between JD.com and rival Alibaba. Alibaba 's lighter business model means that it depends on partners to make shipments, but its Cainiao logistics division is associated with Beihang Unmanned Aircraft System to develop cargo drones. A model on which the drone company works is capable of transporting a ton of goods over 1,500 kilometers. Ele.me, Alibaba 's food delivery arm, got approval in May to test drones in a large industrial area.
In the United States, the Ministry of Transport selected 10 state, local and tribal governments in May to test commercial drones in partnership with companies such as Intel Corp., Uber Technologies Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. A company not named in the US trial was Amazon. com Inc., whose Prime Air unit is a leader in the development of drone delivery. Amazon has been testing UAV deliveries in the UK since 2016.
The use of drones by JD.com and SF is still only a small fraction of their operations, but for the Chinese government, technology offers a way to alleviate poverty in rural areas. areas and reduce the wealth gap with urban centers. It could also make China a model for other governments seeking to draft regulations for future civilian drone swarms.
This is "a key opportunity for CAAC to have greater influence in the international aviation industry and to surpass its peers," he said. declared the Civil Aviation Administration in a written response to Bloomberg News.
JD.com, which has accumulated more than 5,000 hours of drone flight, said parcel delivery costs in upstream rural areas can be five times higher than in cities. Neither JD.com nor SF will say how much can be saved by flying drones, but they expect costs to be lower than those of human deliveries once the technology is ready for widespread use.
In an extreme case, a courier has to go up and down a mountain for four hours to deliver a parcel to a village at the edge of a cliff, Cui said. A drone can make the trip in minutes.
SF aims at integrating small last-flight flights with larger drones relaying goods to traditional distribution centers and cargo planes, to ensure that all deliveries to China are completed in less than 36 hours . "Drones flying one or two tons of cargo on regional roads could lower transport costs in underdeveloped areas to the same level as land transport on main roads," said Li Dongqi, vice president of the group. .
Fixed – wing drones would generally operate from small airports used by helicopters, light aircraft and private jets, or from specially constructed landing lanes in aircraft 's warehouses. business.
On June 18, JD launched its first fixed – wing UAV at its mid – year commercial windfall and will use it to transport time – sensitive and high – value merchandise. SF has been testing similar models since last year.
CAAC issued commercial drone regulations in March that require operators to apply for a license for gear used for aerial spraying, imaging and performance. However, the rules do not apply to drones for deliveries or passenger transport, for which the regulator still collects data before writing the rules.
"It would be too hard for big drones to be regulated in the same way as manned planes," Cui said, adding that many current safety requirements, such as life-saving equipment and signs of display, would not be necessary for a drone.
Governments in other countries are also developing rules, but enormous challenges remain. In the United States, regulators are trying to find ways to create a low-level air traffic system to ensure that UAVs do not collide with each other or with traditional aircraft. Other problems include a standard for communicating with the problems of craftsmanship, security and confidentiality.
Even in China, the CAAC does not allow drones to fly at night, in the rain or in more than a slight breeze.
"We need to look for more places to fly drones to test its capacity, identify the risks and determine how to respond to these risks," said Li from SF. CAAC can only produce a clear set of rules for larger drones from data collected during test flights, he said.
Cui said that getting bigger drones to the skies will be a priority for JD.com this year. The company also offers testing services for UAVs in Tanzania, Indonesia and Thailand.
million. Li said SF is asking CAAC to allow more testing in sparsely populated areas, especially for bigger drones.
"We are exploring an area that has no rules," said Cui of JD.com. "There is chaos and uncertainty, but eventually there must be regulations." – Bloomberg
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