Future super intelligent system

Chapter 283 Unmanned Delivery Progress

Since the courier boy and the takeaway boy are the most complaining on the Internet at the moment, the first thing Liu Fan thinks of is naturally the matter of unmanned delivery.

Unmanned delivery, such as Cainiao, JD.com, Meituan and Ele.me, etc. have started to do it a few years ago and have already done it, but they are all used as an auxiliary to manual delivery. For example, unmanned delivery vehicles in the express delivery industry are just Help the courier to deliver the things to the community, but after arriving in the community, the courier is still required to deliver or put it at the designated waiting point.

So far, there is no delivery machine that can press the elevator, climb the stairs, and find out the corresponding items for customers. In addition, there are still many interactive problems in the delivery process. is a problem.

Takeaway delivery may be slightly better in terms of interaction. After all, takeaway delivery is generally not very valuable and there is no need to communicate. But first of all, takeaway delivery vehicles cannot go upstairs. Another point is that takeaway delivery vehicles cannot deliver one at a time like express delivery vehicles. Car goods, and the unmanned vehicles for express delivery are pulled out from similar sorting stations, which is very convenient, and customers do not rush, as long as they can be delivered in the morning to the city in the afternoon.

But takeaway is different. Takeaway is time-sensitive. After the customer orders the meal, no matter how much you ink it, it will always be delivered within an hour. You have to plan a suitable route, and your delivery car may only be able to Delivering a meal, if it is really used on a large scale, how many unmanned food delivery vehicles will be built, and whether there will be problems when it goes on the road, these are unresolved problems.

Some people may say that it is not convenient to use drones. There will be no traffic jams and no need to go upstairs to deliver directly from the window.However, China's airspace control problem cannot be broken through, and Liu Fan has also communicated with the government. It is impossible to use large-scale drones in urban areas.

Liu Fan thought about it and found it very reasonable. Think about the amount of express delivery and food ordering by Chinese people. When everyone goes out, there will be a cloud of drones looking up, asking if you are in a hurry. Someone just ordered. I ordered a soup, and a gust of wind blew the people below to drink the soup for free.

Moreover, this will also cause potential safety hazards, because it will be used by criminals, so in Liu Fan's view, drone delivery is basically impossible to achieve. Human delivery can only be done by walking, so it is right to think carefully about how to solve the above problems.

Riding a small electric donkey to the Wood Dragon Laboratory, the lights in the Wood Dragon Laboratory are bright at this time, Liu Fan can feel his conscience and say that he has never promoted the overtime culture in the company, but the employees of Wood Dragon Technology, especially the research and development People, even if they are driven home, they will not leave. Maybe many people think this is nonsense, but this is reality.

Especially for those scientific researchers who have no family and no partner, it is very common to sleep in the laboratory for a few days and nights.You must know that for any scientific research project in Wood Dragon Technology, it is at least a big innovation if it is successful.

In addition, there is really no need to worry about doing scientific research in Wood Dragon Technology. As long as you are strong enough to enter Wood Dragon Technology, your salary will definitely not be low. Dividends, Mulong Technology's dividends are incredible, it is really a share of the company's profits.

It is no exaggeration to say that as long as you are not a person who pursues extravagance, as long as your partner is not abnormally prodigal, as long as your parents do not owe more than one million yuan in debt, as long as your children are not cheating, you will definitely not be able to spend your salary in Mulong Technology if you work normally. .

So to sum up, Wood Dragon Technology has provided everyone with money and dreams. It is really normal to work overtime voluntarily, and this boss still insists on overtime wages.

Arriving at the unmanned distribution research department on the third floor, Liu Fan knocked on the door and walked in.

"Mr. Liu."

Liu Fan nodded, "How's the progress now?"

Xiao Ke, the general manager of the entire project, stepped forward and replied, "The unmanned delivery in the express delivery industry has done many offline experiments and online simulations, and it can be said that it is very mature. Now the main problem is still in the food delivery industry. The timeliness of the food delivery industry is the biggest difficulty in the entire distribution plan."

Xiao Ke said and signaled Liu Fan to go forward. Before walking to the big screen, Liu Fan took a look at several delivery robots placed beside him. These delivery robots did not have human form, after all, they were only for express delivery and food delivery. , It would be too extravagant to make a humanoid robot. The general shape is to assemble a mechanical arm and mechanical feet on a square car, which can go up and down stairs, and can take out express delivery or takeaway from the "belly" by pressing the elevator.

According to the size of the goods, there are now a total of 12 models of delivery robots.

"Look, Mr. Liu." When he came to the computer, Xiao Ke interrupted Liu Fan's attention on the delivery robot, "This is the result of a simulation experiment we conducted using the big data provided by the food delivery industry. Based on the current agreement with the government Look, if we want to make small food delivery vehicles, they must belong to non-motorized vehicles, that is, we must use non-motorized lanes. However, with more and more vehicles now, the non-motorized lanes in various cities are becoming narrower and narrower. Once all the food delivery vehicles are used for the daily food delivery volume, how to drive normally on non-motorized vehicles is a difficult problem.

If you want to reduce the number of delivery vehicles, you need to change the design of the delivery vehicles, and start from the height. If it is too high, it does not meet the regulations, and there are safety hazards. If a delivery vehicle needs to deliver multiple takeaways at the same time, It will also affect the delivery time itself.

For this reason, we thought of a solution that is the combination of small delivery vehicles + delivery carts, which is a bit similar to the idea of ​​express delivery. A sufficient number of delivery robots are equipped in the dining area, residential area, and office building area, and then the food is delivered by mobility. The cart carries out the take-out collection and unloading work in the area.

We have done many experiments, relying on the optimal route planning by our artificial intelligence algorithm, this method can be as equal as possible to the current speed of manual food delivery.However, this method also has a disadvantage. Traffic jams cannot be avoided. Once traffic jams occur, there will be regional delays in food delivery.

Generally speaking, our idea is to deliver directly by small delivery vehicles for short distances, and to adopt a combination of small delivery vehicles + large delivery vehicles for long distances, so that the current food delivery speed can be achieved in 80% of cases.But this is already the most efficient delivery solution we could find.

Unfortunately, there is still a problem with this plan. The investment will be very large. Unlike the express delivery industry, there are only a few warehouses and too many takeaway shops. We have to invest a large number of delivery vehicles in each area. Although it is a one-time investment, it can be This investment is still difficult for the platform to accept.

One way we think of now is to open up advertising space on the delivery vehicle, which can balance the investment a little bit.But the platform side still seems to have a hard time accepting this investment. "

Liu Fan quickly browsed the experimental data on the computer, "If I must further improve the delivery speed based on the existing plan, what kind of support do you think may be possible?"

Xiao Ke replied quickly, "Either open up takeaway routes, which we have mentioned to the government before, and I feel that there is hope for further discussions, or optimize the equipment design, which may require some other project teams My colleagues helped, or, to further improve our artificial intelligence level.

In fact, driving on non-motorized lanes is more troublesome than driving on motorized lanes. Although our driverless cars can be very mature, the same artificial intelligence level is still much worse when applied to electric delivery vehicles. Moreover, if the overall level of artificial intelligence can be improved, the planning of delivery routes, the planning of meal pick-up plans, and the connection between small delivery vehicles and large delivery vehicles can all be optimized, which will definitely improve the overall delivery efficiency. "

Liu Fan nodded and said to the crowd, "Now that self-driving online car-hailing is out, the industry of self-driving needs to be further optimized in the future. Coupled with the current peripheral situation, it's time to drop another bomb. .”

Xiao Ke understood Liu Fan's meaning, and his face immediately became shocked, "Mr. Liu, does our artificial intelligence really have room for optimization?"

Liu Fan patted Xiao Ke on the shoulder with a smile, "Uncle Xiao, don't you, an old Jianghu, not understand technical reserves?"

(End of this chapter)