KEY POINTS:
- Commercial drones are flying high in China.
China is fast becoming a global frontrunner in the use of drones in logistics.
The Economic Daily recently reported that Chinese companies have become the first in the world to use drones as standard delivery tools and JD.com, one of China's leading e-commerce companies, is an example.
JD has built hundreds of air routes for drone delivery in many Chinese provinces, including Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Hainan, and Qinghai, with hundreds of remote mountain villages included in the total flight distance of over 80,000km.
As the manufacturing of unmanned aerial vehicles becomes easier in China, more companies are following suit. E-commerce companies such as JD and Suning, couriers like China Post, SF Express and Cainiao, and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) manufacturer Shenzhen Smart Drone UAV Company are competing for market share.
Last year China also became the first country in the world to impose UAV industry standards with the release of a series of guidelines.
According to the World Logistics UAV Industry Development Annual Report (2017-2018) released by JD this August, the development of UAVs in the field of logistics is gaining momentum around the world. The US comes out on top, with Europe following closely, while China is transforming into a pacesetter.
Meanwhile Efy Technology, in China's northern port city of Tianjin, has vowed to become the world's leading enterprise in the UAV industry by increasing investment and personnel for research in, and development of, commercial drones.
Michael Li, an official of Efy Technology, says the company focuses on the development and manufacture of UAV flight control systems, providing a complete control system solution for the application of intelligent UAVs.
Efy recently developed the MQ 300 drone. It can fly for four hours and can transport up to 80 kg in weight. Its maximum speed is 120 km/hr and it can fly to the height of 3000m.
It covers a range of areas such as agriculture and plant protection, low-altitude logistics, police monitoring, forest fire prevention, geological exploration, aerial surveying and mapping. Li says 400 drones were recently used to map the entire city of Tianjin.
Tianjin's Binhai area is already progressing as part of the city's emergence as a smart city, an eco-city and an intelligent manufacturing sector.
Deputy Director of the District Cyberspace Administration of Binhai New Area, Sun Bin, says the Tianjin Academy for Intelligent Recognition Technologies, Efy and Tianjin Sublue Ocean Technology Company are synonymous with intelligent manufacturing in Binhai New Area.
Tianjin Academy for Intelligent Recognition focuses on intelligent computing, Efy Technology company develops and manufactures UAV control systems, while Tianjin Sublue Ocean Technology Company is engaged in the research and development of a full range of underwater robots.
Watrix Technology Limited is China's leading artificial intelligence company, focused on computer vision and big data video analysis. A company official said Watrix Technology Limited has the world's most advanced gait recognition technology and leading industrial vision technology and is at the forefront of technology covering human detection, segmentation, recognition and tracking.
It also provides leading AI solutions for security, transportation, manufacturing, home, retail, robotics and other industries.
Content sourced from the People's Daily Online here and here