Unmanned vehicles are fighting the "epidemic"

At the beginning of 2020, an novel coronavirus epidemic that started in Wuhan quickly swept through China. Under the epidemic situation, all kinds of resources are in short supply, not only in Wuhan, but also in hospitals and ordinary people.

At present, a large number of materials are sent to Wuhan, and transport workers who race against time dare not waste time drinking saliva; Ordinary people who stay at home are also facing severe tests. Masks are out of stock, and the express delivery is delayed. Under the predicament that "masks" are hard to find, purchasing daily necessities has become a century problem.

As a result, some people are calling for unmanned trucks, unmanned express vehicles and unmanned food delivery vehicles to "go online" as soon as possible. Unmanned trucks operate by themselves and send resources to Wuhan; The unmanned express car stops at a fixed point and sends a notice to people when it arrives at the receiving place. People take out their own goods from the special compartment of the car through the received short message code. This not only saves a lot of manpower and material resources, but also avoids face-to-face contact between people and greatly reduces the risk of epidemic situation.

Of course, we know that the application of unmanned vehicles is still immature and the use scenarios are limited. But it is worth noting that it has played a role in fighting the epidemic in various ways.

In order to effectively prevent and control the epidemic situation in novel coronavirus, Futian District took the lead in using unmanned automatic sanitation sweepers in the field of sanitation. The unmanned automatic sanitation cleaning robot can independently complete cleaning, sprinkling water, garbage collection and other work, and maximize work efficiency. In this invisible smoke, the emergence of unmanned automatic sanitation cleaning robots and semi-automatic high-temperature and high-pressure cleaning vehicles has greatly guaranteed the safety of front-line sanitation workers.

Of course, in addition to unmanned sweepers, there are also unmanned vehicles on the frontline battlefields of hospitals. Not long ago, two food delivery robots equipped with unmanned hardware devices and software systems appeared in Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital. They are mainly engaged in delivering medicines, delivering meals, recycling clothes and medical wastes, which effectively reduces the contact frequency between medical staff and patients and reduces the risk of cross-infection? .

Image source: Guangdong Radio and Television Electric Shock News

In addition, as an isolation point, the hotel gathered more people and became the "key protected area" of this epidemic. On the second day of this year, in order to reduce human infection, a hotel isolation point in Shenzhen started the transportation of six robots in Purdue for the first time. After the patient asks for food delivery, medicine delivery or other items, the medical staff only need to put the items on the robot and let it deliver them by itself. After that, the robot will automatically return to the nurse station, and can continue to deliver the baby after disinfection.

In addition to food delivery and medicine delivery services, express delivery is also just needed during the fight against the epidemic. The intelligent express car of Hubei Xiantao Post, which was launched in August last year, played a role in this war. Relevant information shows that the total length of the delivery truck is about? 2? Meter, width? 0.8? Mi, Gao Yue? 1.5? M, what's the maximum speed? 15? Kilometers, how much can you hold at a time? 200? Kilogram mail, possession of drugs? 30? There are four parcel compartments, and the vertically adjacent compartments can be converted into large-capacity compartments by disassembling, so as to meet the delivery requirements of different specifications of mail. The car body is designed with waterproof and dustproof hardware, which can normally complete the delivery operation in different weather environments to ensure that the mail will not be damaged.

The unmanned express car named "Kuafu" provided by Shenzhen Yiqing Technology has also become the main logistics force in an epidemic area in Shandong Province, undertaking the transportation of materials between logistics warehouses and wards, wards and garbage stations, supermarkets and communities. The car can carry 75 small boxes at a time, each box can carry 20 kilograms of goods, and the single transport capacity can reach 1500 kilograms of fruits and vegetables.

Another company, JD.COM, has been preparing intelligent distribution in Wuhan since the outbreak of the epidemic to support the epidemic area more effectively. JD.COM, February 6th. The first batch of medical materials from COM was successfully delivered to the Ninth Hospital of Wuhan, which also fired the first shot of JD.COM. COM "epidemic" in this war. JD.COM said that in the future, with the expansion of intelligent distribution robots, these special "retrograde robots" will provide more hospitals with the distribution of necessary materials.

Image source: Jingdong Logistics WeChat official account

In fact, before the outbreak, many enterprises and many scenes already had unmanned vehicles.

As early as 20 16 and 10, the first automatic trucks transported by Otto were already on the road in the United States. After the first successful transportation, Uber announced to the world that its acquired Otto Company had completed the world's first commercial transportation task of driverless trucks, although the distance from fort collins to Springs was only 133 miles, which was a two-hour drive.

In 20 18, Wal-Mart began to cooperate with? Waymo？ Company cooperation, so that consumers in the suburbs of Phoenix can enjoy this advanced technology in advance. Users only need to submit a shopping list online to get a ride? Waymo？ Some unmanned vehicles go directly to Wal-Mart stores to pick up goods. Last year 1 in and? Udelv？ After the cooperation, Wal-Mart began to test a product called? Newton? Self-driving cars can deliver the goods they ordered online for customers.

2065438+In July 2009, Wal-Mart announced the establishment of a self-driving car startup company? Gatik? Cooperation, officially launched a service: using unmanned vehicles to transport customers' orders between warehouses, pick-up points and some stores in Bentonville, Arkansas, USA. It is reported that Gatik? Is it equipped with an automatic driving system? 4? Class a light commercial vehicles and? B2B？ Short-distance logistics truck, the delivery distance can radiate 200 miles. Since 20 18? Since, vehicles have been tested on highways in California, which can reduce the transportation cost of goods in the city? 50%。

20 19, 12, Tucson's future L4-class driverless truck fleet also successfully completed the first queue car-following test based on C-V2X vehicle-road coordination technology in a fully closed environment in China at Li Jing Expressway (Yanchong-Beijing section). As an autonomous driving solution provider, Tucson will bring partners including Beiqi Futian, Shoufa Group, Huawei and NavInfo in the future to realize the total length of three-car queue14km (including 9.8km continuous extra-long tunnels).

In addition, Debon Express obtained a formal operating license last year. Different from the previous test licenses, the license issued this time allows L4-level operation on the open road in the designated area of Deqing. This means that the unmanned truck express scene application officially landed and commercialized.

In fact, during the period of 2065438 pairs 1 1, Debon Express launched the "Kirin" L4 unmanned freight car for the first time. Up to now, its total operating mileage has reached more than 10000 kilometers, and the accumulated cargo transportation has reached 20,000 tickets. According to the background data, Debon system can support stable unmanned driving in various scenes including rainstorm, tunnel and night, with a top speed of 90 kilometers per hour.

As a giant in the logistics industry, JD.COM also announced a series of new projects at the 2065438+08 JD.COM Cube Conference, including the L4 unmanned heavy truck.

The front of JD.COM unmanned heavy truck is 9 meters long, 2.5 meters wide and 3.5 meters high, and the trailer is 14 meters long. As a L4-class heavyweight product, the car has integrated multiple sensors, with multiple 32-line lidar on the body and 64-line lidar on the roof, which has L4-class automatic driving capability. It is reported that JD.COM unmanned heavy truck has completed the 2400-hour intelligent driving super test, and plans to go on the road in China in 2020.

As for the unmanned express car, last year's 6 18, JD.COM can be said to have earned enough gimmicks, because it officially launched its first attempt to deliver goods in a global scene. On the morning of June 18, 20 JD.COM distribution robots were on the road in Haidian District, and the first batch of JD.COM distribution robots with 6 18 orders were sent out from Shangdi Station under the command of JD.COM platform, which also heralded the arrival of the era of unmanned express delivery.

Of course, Baidu, which was the first in China to get an unmanned test license, is naturally not far behind. At the 20 18 Baidu AI Developers Conference, Baidu announced the official mass production of "Apollon" and took Country Garden Tonghu Technology Town as the ground operation place, which is also the first town and park in the world to truly operate unmanned vehicles. In addition, Baidu and Jinlong Bus, the world's first L4 mass-produced self-driving bus, are also actively promoting commercialization. Baidu said that Apollon, which has completed the final assembly, will be sent to Beijing, Xiong 'an, Shenzhen, Pingtan, Fujian, Country Garden, Wuhan, Hubei and Tokyo, Japan for commercial operation.

Image source: Baidu Apollo official micro

On the same day, Suning Logistics and Baidu Autopilot Division jointly announced that they would accelerate the automatic driving technology of landing logistics, and realize the popularization of terminal delivery autopilot technology and mass production of unmanned delivery vehicles in 2020.

In addition, the rookie has continuously launched a series of intelligent black technologies including rookie unmanned vehicles, drones, rookie express towers, rookie station smart cabinets, rookie boxes, etc., providing all-round solutions from the last 1000 meters to the last 0 meters. Last year, the rookie also started unmanned vehicle delivery. In the future park of Chengdu, rookie unmanned vehicles loaded with parcels walk through the park and deliver the Tmall goods purchased by consumers to the distribution site. The red light is automatically called by the IoT (Internet of Things) system, and the unmanned vehicle independently plans the route to avoid obstacles. This is the first time that the rookie unmanned vehicle has been delivered from the end and entered the park to allocate transportation links, which represents the further expansion of unmanned application scenarios.

In short, the application of unmanned vehicles has begun to be staged around us. However, due to the limitations of technology, environment and law, it still stays in a limited place and has not been widely popularized. But it is conceivable that with the maturity of driverless technology, unmanned vehicles will be used in more scenes and play a greater role at important moments. At the moment when unmanned vehicles are not widely used, in order to better cooperate with the epidemic prevention and control work and block the spread of the epidemic, I hope that everyone will go out less, skip dinner, wash their hands frequently and have more ventilation, and do their best to help the epidemic pass as soon as possible!

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.