When a drone was carrying a box of food and flew over a jungle 1.6 km away, everyone at the scene raised their camera.

Only 2 minutes, the drone has flown over the office building and landed slowly at the position set in advance by the rooftop. With the successive clicks of photos, the takeaway has been safely placed in the designated area.

An employee stepped forward to scan the code to get the box. Justin Co-founder Justin opened the box in public, took out the food, and contained 8 boxes of lunch.Add soup.

He smiled and looked up:

The soup is not spilled, and the rice is still hot.

What kind of drone is this?

This drone, code-named Vesper, is a new product jointly announced by Jifei Technology and Airbus today. Soon, it will be able to bring you takeaway and express delivery in the air. (Subsequently referred to as “Ji Fei” and “Airbus”)

But there were two surprises at this conference:

First, Jifei Technology, which is focused on solving uncle’s problems with unmanned aerial vehicles, has only made a success in the plant protection drone industry, but now it suddenly bursts into the field of logistics.

Second, Airbus, a well-known airline in the global aviation industry, unexpectedly started cooperation with Jifei Technology, which focuses on agriculture.

A company that drives an aircraft “passenger” at an altitude of 30,000 meters, and a company that uses a drone “farm” at an altitude of 3 meters. What sparks can they rub against without any connection?

Then start with this drone.

As the construction of urban ground transportation is getting faster and faster, the congestion phenomenon is becoming more and more a headache. Various companies are eager to try the future delivery methods. Unmanned vehicle delivery and robotic delivery are frequently reported.

Jifei wants to fill its 100m-high blank urban transportation with the drone technology it is good at in farmland.

Co-founder Justin said:

It was because we could n’t keep watching that farmers had to spray medicine in the field with their medicine boxes on the hot sun. Now it ’s the same. In urban logistics and transportation, we find that more than 20 million young people who take delivery to and fro daily Doing boring and dangerous work without accumulating life, this work should be replaced by machines.

So, they used their advantages to build this new logistics drone.

The basic parameters of the Vesper drone are as follows:

  • Maximum take-off weight: 19.4kg
  • Payload: 5kg
  • Flight time: 25min
  • Cruising speed: 43.2km / h
  • Max flight distance: 12km

For a logistics drone, this performance is still good.

For example, a load of 5kg can basically meet all takeaway and ordinary express delivery; cruising speed below 50km / h, which means that delivery can be delivered within 5 minutes from a distance of 5km; and now the Meituan, hungry delivery The range is all within 3km, and the drone’s 12km flight distance can let people eat farther and more variety of takeaway.

But for drones flying above us, safety is the number one concern.

Justin said that this drone will also add a large number of safety devices similar to their previous drones. When encountering sudden changes in airflow or weather, the drone will have enough power to compete with it.

Unless there is no signal from the drone or due to force majeure, the built-in “drone parachute system” will ensure that the flight is slowed down and no harm will be caused when the falling object hits the person. IoT devices will also respond quickly.

In addition, there is another advantage of Extreme Flying Drone worth mentioning-“cm-level flight control”.

Used in farmland, it can help farmers accurately sow and spray medicine, ensuring that every inch of the field is not missing, and when used between cities, it can perform high-precision navigation, allowing drones to fly accurately and accurately. Fly well, this feature will be even more important in crowded urban areas with crowded buildings.

However, although Vesper drone has conducted an outdoor test flight, it does not mean that it is mature, Vesper is only an early product.

Justin also gave us a “prevention shot” before the test flight: it is still not perfect, and we can only try to guarantee its experience and safety.

There are so many companies flying in the sky, why is it Airbus?

The focus of Jifei this time is of course not just to announce this drone, it is actually one of the contents of the VESPER project.

In this project, the common goal of Jifei and Airbus is to create a large platform together. This future picture includes drones, ecosystems and independent brands.

Even if you haven’t heard of Airbus, you should have taken or watched their planes. Building platforms has always been good at Airbus.

In the past 5 years, Airbus has built aircraft around the world , Airport, communications, navigation, and even the runway navigation lights, etc., this has laid the foundation for the infrastructure of Jifei.

According to Justin, in November of last year’s Zhuhai Air Show, Jifei and Airbus decided to do such a project at a seminar on future space, and then slowly reached a consensus, started research and development, explored, Building IP, signing legal contracts, and conducting extensive experiments.

The management of airspace is the ecosystem of Airbus. They can let the aircraft fly in the air, the ground people can respond, and various dispatches can be made through the management system. Now Airbus has a lot of civil flight experience and safe flight records, and has established partnerships with governments around the world.

For the new field of drone delivery, this will undoubtedly give Jiffy more brand awareness and credibility, it will also help Jiffy’s development in the international market and help it obtain local laws. Recognition of regulations.

In addition, Airbus is also a global leader in battery and noise control technology, which is especially important for delivery drones.

If there are hundreds of planes flying out of your window every day and the noise control is not good, you will find it more uncomfortable than traffic jams and honking on the ground.

Previously, Google ’s parent company Alphabet ’s drone was complained by local residents , claiming that it was mowing noise at home Can be heard through double glass. Right now, this drone only has noise during takeoff and landing, and almost no sound can be heard during flight.

For Airbus, their shortcoming is that although Airbus is very good at building large aircraft, it has no experience in the design and manufacture of “small aircraft” such as drones.

So, how to move the farmland network to the sky and build a city’s drone network; how to develop in China with huge demographic dividend and market space, Jifei has a lot of experience to learn from. As for whether Jifei will ignore the original agricultural drone because of the logistics drone, they said that these are two different teams, and the farmland field will not be weakened as a result.

Next, Jifei and Airbus will gradually build the infrastructure of logistics drones in cities.

Justin talked about the drone work scenario of their future city:

The drone will be like a bus, you know which station to which station can run, and how long can it go to the next station, whether it is through hungry or Meituan or SF, you can rest assured Put your parcel in. And we can connect all existing channels and empower all existing logistics.

Justin said that they will eventually connect merchants, logistics companies and consumers through blockchain and AI technology, so that drone technology can really reach the ground.

After all, the consumers who want to receive the goods in the shortest time are the consumers, and the logistics companies also hope to achieve higher efficiency with less cost.

When you place an order, you can see where the car is driving, and even the temperature of the food. Similar to this small experience, the change is huge.

However, it’s not huge. You need to try it to find out.

But at least under the current conditions of the combination of Extreme Flying and Airbus, this has become a foreseeable vision.

Finally, in our interview, Justin also talked about more things that ordinary users care about:

  • In the short term, logistics drones will not replace manpower, but empower them.
  • Within 3-5 years, Jifei Logistics drones will reduce the freight rate to less than the current 5-6 yuan.
  • Next year ’s press conference strives to give a perfect solution to take delivery to your doorstep, and in 3Solve this problem during the year.
  • Today is just a project and technology conference, and some specific business plans will be announced earlier next year.