in light of research done by the Federal Aviation Administration on low-altitude aerial mobility, according to Chen. Lessons from the U.S.įrom 2017 to 2018, China’s civil aviation authority started “following” the U.S. It won’t be surprised if some simply chuck them in the trash.
#CHINA UAV DRONE FREE#
Meituan said it has set up recycling bins next to the kiosks, but customers are also free to keep the containers. There’s also the matter of creating waste with the new delivery boxes. Each kiosk can hold about 28 orders, so at peak hours, Meituan is betting on customers to gather their food promptly. If someone orders just one cup of milk tea, the remaining space is wasted.
Each of Meituan’s small aircraft, which are built with carbon fiber and weigh around 4 kilograms, can carry about 2.5 kilograms of food - roughly the weight of an average two-person meal, according to Chen.
The economic viability for using drones to deliver food of course is still unproven. Meituan’s navigation system then calculates the quickest and safest route for the flyer to reach the pickup kiosk and off it goes. Photo: TechCrunchīefore takeoff, an inspector checks to see if the box holding the drink is secure. Meituan’s drone launching pads on the roof of a mall in Shenzhen. That means our operational capability has reached a new level,” said Chen Tianjian, technical expert at Meituan’s drone business, at the same event. “We went from experimenting in the suburbs to a central area. The application, submitted in September, is currently under review by Shenzhen’s aviation authority and is expected to receive approval in 2022, though the actual timeline is subject to government decisions. On the back of the pilot program, Meituan has applied to operate a commercial drone delivery service across all of Shenzhen, Mao Yinian, head of the company’s drone delivery unit, said at a press event this month. Alibaba, which runs Meituan’s rival Ele.me and e-commerce powerhouse JD.com, have also invested in similar drone delivery services in recent years. Tencent-backed Meituan isn’t the only Chinese tech giant that hopes to fill urban skies with tiny fliers. But the trials are proof of concept for Meituan’s ambitions, and the company is now ready to ramp up its aerial delivery ambitions.
#CHINA UAV DRONE WINDOWS#
The drones deliver to designated streetside kiosks rather than hover outside people’s windows as envisioned by sci-fi writers. The pilot program is available to just seven neighborhoods, each with a three-kilometer stretch, and only from a select number of merchants. Over the past two years, Meituan, one of China’s largest internet companies, has flown 19,000 meals to 8,000 customers across Shenzhen, a city with close to 20 million people. The only thing the scene is missing is a choir of angels. In less than 10 minutes, the pearl-white drink arrives, not on the back of one of the city’s ubiquitous delivery bikes, but descending from the cloudy heavens, in a cardboard box on the back of a drone, into a small roadside kiosk. On a congested sidewalk next to a busy mall in Shenzhen, a 20-something woman uses a smartphone app to order a milk tea on Meituan, a major food delivery company.
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