No need for delivery people for food delivery? Meituan opens unmanned delivery platform to reduce labor costs

On July 25, Meituan launched an open platform for unmanned delivery, applying autonomous driving technology to food delivery scenarios. This year is still a trial operation, and it is planned to achieve large-scale operation in the region in 2019.

Meituan’s current maximum daily order volume for food delivery is 21 million. The labor cost of delivery is very high. Using unmanned driving for some orders can improve efficiency and costs.

Meituan Dianping currently covers 2,800 cities and counties across the country, with different weather conditions in four seasons from north to south, and operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, which can provide rich data for autonomous driving.

Meituan Dianping will open its intelligent dispatching system, Meituan Cloud, big data, data security system and other technical platforms to its partners to help them improve their own technology.

Meituan Dianping established the W project team in 2016 and began to invest in research and development of unmanned delivery. By the end of 2017, it officially established the unmanned delivery department.

Meituan Dianping is going to build an open platform for unmanned delivery, which will include participants such as enterprises, campuses, industries, and government agencies. On the enterprise side, it covers five types of partner companies in the fields of software, network, period, complete vehicle, and industry, such as Neolithic, autoX, Zhixingzhe, Joy City, Roadstar.ai, etc.

Meituan Dianping displayed three laboratory products developed at the site, including Meituan's unmanned delivery concept car, the unmanned car "Xiaodai" that has been put into trial operation, and drones. Among them, the new concept car adopts L4 level autonomous driving technology, uses laser radar, ultrasound, camera and other multi-sensor fusion solutions, and has the ability to pass low-speed autonomous driving on urban roads.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.