Drones in logistics: development and application

Based on the dramatic increase in distribution demand, soaring labor costs, and other factors, coupled with the progress of relevant hardware and software technology, drones have reached the basic requirements of practicality and together contribute to a "change" in logistics innovation - drone logistics. Drones are considered to be an effective means to solve the problem of "last mile" delivery. In the future, logistics drones will become an indispensable infrastructure for the modern logistics industry, helping the logistics industry leapfrog development.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are unmanned aircraft operated by radio-controlled equipment and self-contained program control devices, principally for replacing humans in aerial operations and to form aerial platforms that can be combined with other components to expand applications. Drones are divided into military-grade and civilian-grade by application area; on the civilian side, they are divided into consumer-grade and industrial-grade. At present, industrial-grade drones have been widely used in agriculture and forestry plant protection, power patrol, border patrol, forest fire prevention, logistics distribution and other fields.

Advantages of UAVs in logistics

Time and space-saving, convenient, and efficient

Compared to ground transportation, drones have the advantages of convenience and efficiency, saving land resources and infrastructure. In some traffic paralysis sections, congested areas of the city, as well as some remote areas, ground transportation can not be smooth, resulting in the delivery of goods or parcels taking longer than normal or costing more. In some environments and conditions, only drone transportation methods can achieve "accessibility", which can not be replaced by other methods. And logistics drones can effectively reduce the burden of ground transportation and save resources and construction costs through the rational use of idle low-altitude resources.

Consumer packages are successfully delivered by China Communication's drones

Flexible scheduling and low costs

Compared with other forms of air transportation, such as general air transport and helicopter amr roboticstransport, drone transport has the advantages of low cost and flexibility in scheduling, which can fill the gap in traditional air capacity. As the demand for air cargo rises year by year, the number of licensed pilots and supporting resources, as well as the labor costs of pilots and crew members, have become constraints on development. The cost of unmanned cargo is relatively low, and the unmanned feature enables airports to realize intensive development of all factors in construction and operation management.

Human-machine collaboration: solving the aging population problem

If drones can be reasonably developed and utilized in logistics such as inventory, transportation and distribution, and supplemented with careful deployment and scientific management, they can be connected with other operation methods, thereby saving labor. By assisting manpower to play the "human-machine synergy" effect, they can produce the best benefits.

Synergy and optimization of capacity

Based on scientific planning, the integrated use of Internet + drones, robots and other technologies and methods can achieve synergistic capacity and optimize capacity. In order to handle some fast delivery and continuous replenishment orders, Amazon, Walmart, and other companies have planned intelligent and efficient drone urban distribution centers (such as Amazon's drone tower) and "drone carriers" (aerial distribution bases) on the basis of building advanced information systems, intelligent storage systems, and optimizing business processes.

With drone delivery, traditional methods, such as iron, public, and air, can be supplemented by drone technology. The combination of pipeline, water, and multimodal transportation, as well as drone end distribution and feeder transportation, will definitely enhance the service capacity of modern logistics, and its efficiency, cost and capacity will also be optimized and rebuilt.

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