Chinese UAV News & Discussions (Strictly)

[JSCh]

Chinese firm to use drones to deliver food
Source:Global Times Published: 2018/5/30 0:03:57

Ele.me drones set for food-delivery role in Shanghai industry park

View of an ele.me drone in flight. Photo: Courtesy of ele.me​

Shanghai-based food-ordering platform ele.me announced on Tuesday that it has been granted a license for delivering food using drones, the first such service in China.

The company has been approved for 17 drone-powered delivery routes, covering about 100 merchants. All the routes are in the Shanghai Jinshan Industrial Park in the southwestern part of the city.

Drones will be able to deliver about 70 percent of the orders, which will cut the target delivery time, ele.me said in a statement sent to the Global Times.

"The launch of drone delivery shows that the future of logistics has become a reality, and it also shows that logistics is shifting from a labor-intensive sector to one that is technology-powered," Kang Jia, the company's chief operating officer, said in the statement.

At the moment, deliveries are promised within 30 minutes, but the use of drones will shorten the time to 20 minutes, Kang noted.

Ele.me has also been rolling out food delivery robots in China, which are expected to serve 500 office buildings in some cities this year, the company said.

Ele.me's drones made their debut at a global unmanned systems conference in September 2017.

The drones' top flight speed is 65 kilometers per hour, carrying up to 6 kilograms, according to domestic news site sina.com.cn. When they're fully loaded, they can travel 20 kilometers.

 

[cirr]

http://video.sina.com.cn/p/mil/doc/2018-05-30/104768629858.html

56-USV swarm in the SCS.

 

[LKJ86]

The first time I saw it flying:

Photo taken in December 2015.

 

[JSCh]

Biggest civilian drone designed for couriers
By Zhao Lei | China Daily | Updated: 2018-05-31 07:25

Illustration shows planned civilian drone. [Photo provided to China Daily]​

Chinese engineers soon will have a world-record-holding product to offer to express delivery companies: the largest civilian drone.

Engineers at Beihang Unmanned Aircraft System Technology, a part of Beihang University in Beijing, are designing a drone that will be able to fly 1,500 kilometers carrying 1 metric ton of cargo.

They plan to finalize their design before year's end and construct a prototype in 2019 for test flights scheduled to start in 2020. Mass production will begin if test flights are successful, and a drone-based delivery network is expected to take shape around 2025, said Zhang Shuo, chief designer at the Beihang technology company, in an exclusive interview with China Daily.

The yet to be named drone will be so big that if it were to carry people, it easily would hold nine passengers, according to the company.

It will be 11.9 meters long, with a wingspan of 19.6 m, and have a maximum takeoff weight of 3.6 tons. The craft will be powered by two engines and have 16 cubic meters of cargo space.

The company expects to sign a strategic partnership agreement on Thursday with logistics company Cainiao, which is controlled by Chinese e-retailing giant Alibaba Group, to jointly develop and market cargo drones, Zhang said.

"We're targeting express delivery enterprises as major users of our drone because they are projected to be the largest users of commercial drones. We believe that Chinese couriers will like a powerful craft suitable for cross-province cargo delivery, especially in remote or mountainous regions or islands," he said.

Illustration shows planned civilian drone. [Photo provided to China Daily]​

The Beihang drone will incorporate lots of artificial intelligence, enabling it to not only control itself during entire flights but also autonomously determine and cope with malfunctions, Zhang said. It will cruise at a high speed, 360 km/h, and be able to take off and land on short, rough runways.

Typical delivery drones are small models used on a small, experimental scale by a handful of technology-savvy firms like Amazon.com, DHL Express and Chinese online retail giant JD.com.

No other mass-produced civilian drone is as big or powerful as the Beihang model. Several unmanned, solar-powered planes have a longer wingspan but weigh much less and were designed for technological demonstrations.

The world's largest drone is the United States' Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, a military surveillance craft that is 14.5 m long and with a wingspan of 39.9 m and a maximum takeoff weight of nearly 15 tons.

China has been the world's largest express service market for four years. Couriers delivered more than 40 billion packages in the country in 2017, earning total revenue of nearly 500 billion yuan ($78 billion), according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

 

[Cybernetics]

 

[JSCh]

http://video.sina.com.cn/p/mil/doc/2018-05-30/104768629858.html

56-USV swarm in the SCS.

Formation control of unmanned boats in the South China Sea
CGTN
Published on May 31, 2018

A large-scale technical test of 56 unmanned boats was conducted in the South China Sea on May 29 involving formation changing and obstacle avoidance.

 

[JSCh]

Is China at the forefront of drone technology? | ChinaPower Project

 

[LKJ86]

 

[cirr]

3D-printed titanium alloy frame beam of a certain hypersonic/high supersonic drone?

http://www.nanjixiong.com/thread-128357-1-1.html

Main dimensions: length 7xxxmm width 2xxxmm height 1xxxmm

 

[Deino]

Hmmm ??? But that structure looks not like 7m x 2m x 1m but more like 3m x 3m x 1m

 

[cirr]

Hmmm ??? But that structure looks not like 7m x 2m x 1m but more like 3m x 3m x 1m

The main body structure of the flight vehicle with integrated metal frame beam is 7XXXXmm in length....

The article talks about mass production of same. so......

 

[LKJ86]

 

[Deino]

View attachment 478379 View attachment 478381

Any info where this was taken?

 

[LKJ86]

 

[LKJ86]

https://m.weibo.cn/1403915120/4247529976088453