Along a quiet residential street on the outer edges of Beijing, a yellow-and-black cube about the size of a small washing machine trundles leisurely to its destination.
The “little yellow horse” (真機小黃馬) is an autonomous delivery robot, ferrying daily essentials, such as drinks, fruit and snacks, from a local store to the residents of the “Kafka” compound in the Chinese capital.
Equipped with a GPS system, cameras and radar, the robots are seen by their creator as the future of logistics in China.
Photo: AFP
Traveling at a less-than-overwhelming 3kph — a slow human walk — the robot has room for improvement, one customer said as she removed a packet of nuts from its bowels.
“The weak point is that it cannot deliver directly to the door like a human,” said the customer, who does not live on the ground floor. “But it’s still quite practical. The robot delivers relatively quickly.”
The robot takes advantage of China’s love of cashless payments and smartphone shopping.
China is the world’s biggest online shopping market, with more than half of its population making at least one smartphone purchase per month professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers said.
This compares with 14 percent in the rest of the world.
Whether buying electronics or toilet paper, avocadoes or clothes, Chinese are used to simply tapping a button on their smartphone and getting a home delivery — sometimes several per day.
To get a delivery via the little yellow horse, the customer selects the desired products, taps in the address and pays via their phone. Supermarket employees place the items in the robot and it bustles off.
Liu Zhiyong (劉智勇), founder and chief executive officer of Zhen Robotics, which manufactures the robot, sees a bright future for his yellow creation.
“At the moment, there are 100 million packages delivered every day in China. It will be 1 billion in the future,” Liu told reporters.
“There will not be enough humans to make the deliveries. We need more and more robots to fill this gap in manpower, and to reduce costs,” he added.
The costs are especially high in the last kilometer of a delivery, where precision is key and a customized service is required to get the product to the front door.
At the moment, the yellow robots in the Kafka compound have little to trouble them, moving along a wide pavement with no obstacles — and no cars.
Weighing 30kg and with a theoretical top speed of 12kph on their six wheels, the robots have four cameras constantly scanning the world around them and a laser teledetection system allowing them to avoid obstacles.
Liu’s firm has already signed up Suning, a large electronics firm that also runs a network of small supermarkets.
However, not everyone is convinced the robots are a long-term logistics solution.
Former China Express Association deputy secretary-general Shao Zhonglin (邵鍾林) said that they were useful “over a short range.”
“However, it is not certain that they can be a broad solution for the final kilometer of delivery, because the client still has to come down to get their package,” Shao added. “Plus the costs remain quite high: buying and maintaining the robots, operating costs, etc.”
However, Zhen Robotics is convinced that the costs will come down over time.
Liu also said that the robot would soon be equipped with the necessary technology to operate a lift, meaning that it would no longer be confined to ground-floor deliveries.
Deliveries in China are increasingly being made by autonomous means. Over the past few months, several firms have received the green light to operate drones, either to deliver directly to the customer or to ferry goods between hubs.
Liu has a warning for anyone trying to vandalize or steal the yellow robot.
“With GPS, we are constantly tracking them, cameras are filming and it can sound an alarm,” he said. “Anyway, what would a thief do with it? It’s not exactly resellable.”
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