In recent years, with the continuous promotion of smart logistics, large-scale applications such as intelligent warehousing and sorting, drones, and unmanned vehicles have accelerated the upgrading of logistics industry equipment and continuously improved efficiency. The concepts of "next day delivery", "hourly delivery", "minute delivery", etc. are constantly refreshing people's understanding of logistics speed. Intelligent logistics technology has risen to become a strong driving force for the development of China's logistics industry.
Low altitude logistics is poised for takeoff
Drones carrying goods fly towards the mountaintop, delivering supplies to the scenic area; Sitting at home watching TV, drone food delivery "falling from the sky"... These future lives that originally appeared in science fiction movies have now entered reality with the accelerated expansion of low altitude application scenarios.
The latest data shows that as of the end of 2023, the number of general aviation aircraft in China is about 3173, and the registered number of drones has reached 1.26 million; The drone's flight time reached 23.11 million hours, a year-on-year increase of 11.8%. As of the end of 2023, there are approximately 2000 unmanned aerial vehicle design and manufacturing units and nearly 20000 operating enterprises in China.
With the increasing application scenarios of drones, the "low altitude economy" has opened up a new track of logistics competition, and major cities have also entered the market, opening up speed competitions. On April 1st, Wuxi's low altitude logistics drone made its maiden flight for delivery; On April 12th, the first commercial cross sea low altitude logistics route in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area completed its maiden flight; On May 1st, the first batch of unmanned aerial vehicle logistics distribution routes in Hefei officially opened; On May 7th, Hunan's first regular low altitude logistics application route was opened in Changsha County; On May 18th, Jiangxi's first commercial grade "drone delivery" route was opened; On May 18th, Henan Province opened its first low altitude unmanned aerial vehicle logistics distribution route; On June 3rd, a low altitude logistics route for unmanned aerial vehicles specifically used for transporting land and island supplies was opened in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province
At the same time, enterprises are also accelerating related business innovation, such as SF Express's drone aviation operation (pilot) business, JD's nationwide drone logistics and distribution business upgrade, Meituan's drone delivery route pilot, and the low altitude "taxi" service for Eastern Airlines.
It can be seen that low altitude logistics is regarded as one of the key development trends of low altitude economy. With the accelerated construction of the air transportation network, low altitude logistics will be widely piloted, and its efficiency advantages will become more prominent, gradually becoming an important driving force for the growth of low altitude flight activities.
Speed up the commercial operation of unmanned streaming vehicles
The latest data shows that according to incomplete statistics, in May 2024, there were 14 important investment and financing events in the field of autonomous driving, with a total disclosed financing amount exceeding 8.9 billion yuan. Among them, companies such as Mainline Technology, Jianzhi Robot, and Chaoxing Future have raised over 100 million yuan in financing.
Commercial operation is the foundation for the survival of autonomous driving enterprises. Looking back at the commercialization process of logistics vehicle autonomous driving, some leading enterprises in the industry have expanded their commercial trial operation areas from super large cities to first tier cities in various regions, accelerating the commercialization of their own products.
On June 5th, Jiushi Intelligence passed CETRAN's autonomous driving test project in Singapore and was awarded the first unmanned logistics vehicle license plate in Singapore by the Land Transport Authority (LTA); On May 30th, Neolithic was awarded the first batch of autonomous driving equipment identification tags in Shanghai. After Beijing, Neolithic has won the right of way in another first tier city, accelerating the large-scale landing of unmanned vehicles in East and South China; On May 20th, the first batch of 5 unmanned delivery vehicles from SF Express in Inner Mongolia were put into use in Ordos City; On May 22nd, Wenyuan Zhixing announced that it has obtained the remote testing (unmanned) license and cargo testing license issued by Guangzhou City. Its autonomous freight vehicle Robovan has been approved to conduct "pure unmanned testing" and "cargo testing" of autonomous city freight vehicles in Guangzhou City... It is not difficult to see that the development of unmanned vehicles is a new trend and direction.
With the application and development of global 5G technology and the gradual advancement of the artificial intelligence industry, the market size of the autonomous vehicle industry has significantly increased. McKinsey predicts that by 2025, the annual sales of low-speed autonomous vehicle in China will reach 190000, including 80000 in the field of logistics and distribution. The World Economic Forum predicts that with the acceleration of global urbanization, the demand for "last mile" delivery in cities will increase by 78% by 2030, and the number of delivery vehicles used for "last mile" will increase by 35%.
AI opens up a new era of logistics supply chain
At present, global AI has entered explosive development, and the arrival of AI storm will bring disruptive changes to the global supply chain. Currently, several leading express logistics companies are developing and deploying AI based solutions.
In September 2023, SF Technologies released its latest smart supply chain achievement - the "Fengzhi Cloud" series of products. It is reported that the "Fengzhi Cloud" product system is an important tool for SF Technology to accurately predict and optimize various demand scenarios in 2B sales and 2C retail through advanced technologies such as big data analysis and artificial intelligence. In the same month, the Shunfeng version of ChatGPT, "Xiaofeng Smart Answer," was launched. Based on big model technology, it customizes AI intelligent digital employees for enterprises, aiming to create experts or cross functional assistants in various vertical fields such as customer service and sales by learning the private data of enterprises.
Sinotrans Logistics, a subsidiary of Sinotrans, officially released the intelligent inventory robot "Xiaoyoupan" in December 2023. It is reported that the intelligent inventory robot "Xiaoyoupan" is an intelligent inventory device independently developed by China COSCO Shipping after 5 years of research and development. This device is based on AI vision technology, AGV as the carrier, and lifting mechanism and visual camera group as the executing mechanism. It can automatically identify, collect and verify the information of each storage location for different storage forms such as whole and scattered goods. It has strong adaptability and fast iteration speed, and is suitable for various types of pallet shelves. It can replace inventory personnel and complete inventory operations safely, with high quality and efficiency.
Cainiao continuously applies AI technology to various business scenarios such as warehousing, distribution, transportation, delivery, and post stations. To improve operational efficiency, develop high-precision forecasting and intelligent scheduling systems to enhance supply-demand matching and resource utilization; To address the issues of long and multiple cross-border logistics links, we have developed a full chain machine vision system to reduce package misdelivery rates and improve contract quality; To address communication issues among overseas consumers from different countries, we are developing cross lingual and multi-channel intelligent customer service products to support cross-border sellers and logistics companies in enhancing their service capabilities for overseas consumers.
JD has launched multiple innovative applications, such as NeuScan intelligent checkout counter, NeuHive honeycomb space robot, NeuGlass JD super glasses, NeuBot Jingling service robot, ground wolf handling AGV, etc., providing intelligent solutions for retail, logistics, municipal and other fields. The development of JD's AI business has brought significant improvements to JD's revenue and profits. According to JD's Q3 2023 financial report, JD Group's revenue reached RMB 247.7 billion (approximately USD 34 billion), a year-on-year increase of 23.5%; Service revenue reached 52.4 billion yuan (approximately 7.2 billion US dollars), a year-on-year increase of 36.8%, accounting for more than 20% of overall revenue for the first time, reaching 21.2%. Among them, logistics and other service revenue increased by 19.3% year-on-year.
Nowadays, the application and expansion of AI in the logistics field are becoming increasingly common, especially in data analysis, solution optimization, risk management, scenario simulation, and other areas. With the rapid advancement of key technologies such as navigation, path planning, machine vision, sensor technology, and control systems, various logistics robots in China, such as AGV, AMR, RGV, palletizing robots, sorting robots, and unmanned distribution robots, have been developed. Using scenario applications as the starting point and advanced information technology, we continuously promote internal practice to empower the outside world, and create greater value for the logistics industry through cutting-edge solutions. It is not difficult to foresee that in the future, "AI+logistics" will have greater imagination space.
With the arrival of the era of intelligent technology, new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet of Things, 5G, autonomous driving, and digital twins are constantly being deeply applied in many logistics scenarios such as warehousing operations, mainline transportation, urban logistics, and end of pipe distribution. With the support of logistics black technology, the logistics industry has comprehensively improved its efficiency and capabilities, constantly updating and iterating the industry ecology. Next, how will new technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence help accelerate the industry's growth?
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