OFweekrobotAfter four years of layout, SF Express finally obtained the first drone logistics license in China.
Recently, the drone flight airspace jointly declared by SF Express and Ganzhou Nankang District has been officially approved by the civil aviation department. The airspace covers five townships in Nankang District, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province. SF Express is currently the only logistics company to conduct pilot logistics operations in this region.
It is understood that many companies such as SF Express, JD.com, Suning, and Post have taken the lead in deploying drone logistics. Among them, JD.com will work with the Shaanxi Provincial Government to build the world’s first low-altitude drone logistics network operation base in Shaanxi.
“The policy significance of SF’s drones obtaining legal flight rights is greater than the significance of test flights.” Many industry insiders said in an interview with a reporter from “China Business News” that drone logistics, as an important part of smart logistics, has a positive cost advantage. Usher in the development “window”. However, subject to factors such as the lack of relevant industry standards and low-altitude airspace control in China, there is still a long way to go before drone logistics enter commercial operation.
preemptive layout
It took SF Express nearly 6 years from proposing the concept of drone logistics to obtaining the legal right to fly.
It is understood that as early as 2012, Wang Wei, the founder of SF Express, proposed the idea of unmanned aerial vehicle logistics, and in 2013, he officially launched the pilot operation related work. In 2017, the Manta Ray vertical take-off and landing fixed-wing UAV independently developed by SF Express came out. In June of the same year, SF Express successfully completed the test flight in Nankang District, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, and obtained the first legal flight right for UAV logistics in China.
Also as one of the earliest domestic companies that tried to use drones for delivery, as early as 2015, the JD.com drone project was officially approved. Vehicles and unmanned warehouses.
JD.com insiders said in an interview with reporters that in June 2016, JD.com completed the “first order of drone delivery” in Suqian, Jiangsu, and the service scope is mainly in rural areas. At present, the construction of the JD.com UAV operation and dispatch center has been completed in Suqian.
It is understood that the logistics layout of SF Express’s drones expands to surrounding provinces centered on Guangzhou, where SF Express is based, from testing drones in Guangzhou and Dongguan to obtaining demonstration flight rights in Jiangxi, and then building an airport in Ezhou, Hubei. Currently, the logistics layout of SF Express’ drones Mainly concentrated in the south-central. In the future, SF Express will take Hubei Ezhou Airport as its base, and use large-scale logistics drones to quickly deliver goods to economically underdeveloped areas, remote areas, and western regions.
The layout of Jingdong’s drone logistics is centered on Suqian and develops to the northwest and southwest. Jingdong insiders told reporters that Jingdong drones have been deployed in 7 cities, including Shaanxi and Sichuan, and plan to expand from rural to urban in the future.
In addition, Suning will also officially start the construction of “two networks and one platform” around drone logistics. It is understood that the “two networks” are the “ground network” and the “sky network”. The “ground network” focuses on building a nationwide ground service network covering UAV navigation, research and development, production and after-sales, and centrally manages UAV industry re