Chapter 276 Long Betting
After eating the whole family's bucket, Jiang Miao and his wife saw a drone flying in from the balcony on the second floor of Western Fast Food, and then the drone flew out with a package.
He looked up.
I found that the drone was sprayed with the logo of Fengmei Takeaway, and the package he just took away was a takeaway.
"Is this a beautiful food delivery drone?"
Li Zixuan, who was standing beside him, immediately replied: "Yes, boss, this is the delivery drone recently tested by Fengmei Takeaway."
"Cage drone?" Jiang Miao thought about something.
After a while, he saw that the drone did not enter the upper part of the road, but flew to the roof of the building above the street shop, and then quickly flew to the destination.
Li Zixuan explained in a low voice: "Boss, the reason why we fly like this is to prevent the drone from falling out of control and falling on pedestrians and vehicles on the road."
"Tell me in detail how Fengmei designed the flight route?" Jiang Miao handed his daughter to Shuya.
Li Zixuan has also experienced it. He will understand many things in the company in advance and specifically answer Jiang Miao's sudden inquiry.
He replied with a smile: "Boss, this is the case. Fengmei has established a project for delivering food drones since August last year, but in the actual test process and a series of model simulation tests, they discovered many problems with delivering food by drones."
"What are the problems?" Jiang Miao said as he walked.
"The first problem is the problem of drone signal base stations. To achieve precise control of drones, a large number of signal base stations must be arranged inside the city, which is too expensive."
Hearing this answer, Jiang Miao took a sip of Tianfu Coke, which had just been brought from Western fast food: "Himmer... This problem can be solved. The Blue Whale Airship is testing the stratospheric fixed airship, which can be transformed into a communication airship."
If a photovoltaic airship is used, it is fixed at an altitude of 18,000 meters and can basically cover the ground with a radius of 480 kilometers to form an efficient communication LAN.
Of course, considering the blockage of terrain and urban buildings, it will lead to communication blind spots in electromagnetic waves, so low-frequency bands and high-frequency bands need to be used.
Low-frequency bands that can be accurately controlled, with a range of 100 to 200 kilometers.
Key hot cities need to use high-frequency band reinforcement, but high-frequency bands can only cover within 20 to 50 kilometers.
In this case, the communication base station airship can only float directly above the hot-spot city, which can ensure that it covers the surrounding area to the maximum extent and ensures communication within the city.
As for whether to build a ground communication base station to supplement it.
Jiang Miao’s idea is not needed.
Because the terrain blocks electromagnetic wave communication, it can be solved by repeated coverage of multiple angles.
After all, the cost of building a communication airship of Blue Whale is only one or two million yuan. If a communication airship has a communication blind spot, then place a few more around it, which is much more cost-effective than building a ground base station.
Because the communication airship is not a photovoltaic airship and does not need to transmit power to the ground through cables, there is no need to connect the ground cables. The airship's own photovoltaic panels and batteries only need to maintain its own position and ensure high-quality communication.
This high-altitude communication platform is much more cost-effective than communication satellites. Whether it is cost, communication quality, or maintenance difficulty, it is better than communication satellites.
The only thing that is not as good as a communication satellite is probably the communication radius.
However, although the communication radius of a satellite is long, it is obtained by sacrificing communication quality. In addition, the weight that can be carried on the satellite is limited, and the communication capacity is also limited.
If a stratospheric airship of the level similar to a jellyfish photovoltaic airship is transformed into a communication airship, it does not require a transmission cable or too much power generation, so the weight of the communication equipment it carries can reach more than ten tons.
With more than a dozen tons of communication equipment, which communication satellite can bring so many devices to outer space? This is a weight that communication satellites cannot reach.
Li Zixuan has also read relevant information within the company, but he does not have high authority in Jiang Miao. He only knows that there is a rough project and does not know the specific progress. However, since the boss said there is no problem, he naturally thinks it is no problem.
Then he continued: "The second problem is the problem of falling. Even if there is a relatively accurate drone signal control base station, the drone still has the risk of falling during flight. The more serious risk is that drones fly in crowded areas and traffic lines. Once a fall accident occurs, casualties may occur."
Shuya, who was holding her daughter, interjected: "It is indeed necessary to pay attention to this point."
Li Zixuan nodded and then continued: "Fengmei simulates the future operation of drones in cities. As major takeaway and express delivery companies enter this field, the density of drones in cities will increase rapidly in the future, which means that the probability of drones colliding is also increasing rapidly."
"How do they plan to solve it?" Jiang Miao asked curiously.
"Their idea is to establish exclusive flight routes."
Hearing this answer, Jiang Miao raised his eyebrows: "Only fly the roof of the building? Although this can solve some problems, there is no connection between the buildings, and you must fly over the road."
"Yes, Fengmei also thought of this problem, but they thought of a solution, which is to arrange blocking networks and even blocking pipelines on some roads."
"Block the network?" Jiang Miao immediately understood Fengmei Company's idea.
Because Hailufeng Company produces high-strength silicon bean silk, this material can maintain a service life of 20 to 30 years even in an open air environment.
The blocking net woven through silicon bean silk is enough to block the falling drone. Not to mention a drone with only a few dozen kilograms, even a few hundred kilograms of falling objects can be blocked by the blocking net.
At the same time, the blocking net woven by silicon bean silk is very light in weight. It uses fine mesh, which is estimated to be more than 100 grams per square meter. One ton of ordinary silicon bean silk can weave a blocking net of 10,000 square meters.
At present, the factory price of ordinary silicon bean silk of Minqin Group is about 35,000 yuan per ton. The cost of weaving into a net is not high, so it is estimated that the processing cost will be increased by a few hundred yuan.
This is indeed the best way to solve the possible safety accidents in the flight of drones inside cities.
As for what algorithms, AI assistance, and manual assistance, they are not as reliable as this one.
Moreover, this kind of facility can be directly transformed into a passive drone interception system during wartime to prevent enemy drones from storming the city's interior.
Of course, considering avoiding these blocking nets, birds that wrap around the city must have a thin mesh size, and the edge length is about 2 cm to 4 cm. When completely tight, even if the birds bump into it, they will not be entangled.
If this method is adopted, it is possible to arrange a floor on the highway to separate the drone from the road, which can reduce many safety concerns.
However, Jiang Miao immediately thought of another question: "If the road is completely sealed, if there is a fire or high-altitude operation, these barrier networks may become obstacles."
Li Zixuan nodded: "Yes, boss. Fengmei's research team also noticed this problem. In order to avoid this problem, they adjusted the original plan and changed it to a plan to lay out the nets and build bridges on the roads, and the sky above the building serves as the main channel."
Jiang Miao shook his head: "There are indeed fewer people over the building, but the heights of the buildings vary, and there are people moving on many residential buildings, which is also a problem."
Shuya, who had listened for a long time, smiled and said, "It's a lot of good things, Fengmei has tried every means."
However, Jiang Miao attaches great importance to the issue of safety than everyone: "Although drones are convenient, the safety within the city must be highly valued. Otherwise, when the full promotion is carried out in the future, a large number of drones will fly densely in the city sky, and who dares to go out shopping?"
As for the option of not using drones.
Jiang Miao knew that Fengmei takeaway had no choice.
Because Kangaroo, Shunfeng, Goudong and other companies have already experimented on a small scale, they will be eliminated by the market if they do not follow up.
Although Fengmei Takeaway defeated Kangaroo Takeaway in Shanmei, it does not mean that they have no power to fight back.
Now Fengmei must follow up on the delivery drone project.
After thinking about it, Jiang Miao still felt that there were a lot of troubles in entering the city.
Li Zixuan also remembered one thing: "By the way, boss, Fengmei is still experimenting with another delivery project."
"Also?"
"There is no formal experiment yet, but the customized equipment has arrived. After the Chinese New Year, I plan to find a place to test in the urban area."
"What specific project is it?"
"Just... that's..." Li Zixuan didn't know how to describe it for a while. After thinking for a while, he thought of something similar: "It's a distribution system hanging on the ceiling used by some hospitals."
"Hospital? Ceiling?"
Shuya thought of something: "It should be the sky car system used by the hospital."
Speaking of the sky car system, Jiang Miao suddenly realized: "Oh, that's it!"
Li Zixuan nodded quickly: "Yeah, it's the Sky Truck System."
"Using the skycar system to deliver goods within the city?" Jiang Miao thought.
"This is how Fengmei's project planning is..." Li Zixuan carefully explained the settings of this system to the two.
It turns out that the project team of Fengmei Takeaway plans to use high-strength silicon carbide nanotubes to braid it into cables. This high-strength material is very wear-resistant and high-temperature resistant, and can be made very thin. Using a cable car with an overall weight of no more than 50 kg (including cargo) can not only maintain a good speed, but also miniaturize the entire system and reduce the overall engineering cost.
With the current technology of Hailufeng Company, the weight of a small cable car can be compressed to about 20 kg, thereby achieving a payload of 30 kg.
If charging issues are considered, you can also directly arrange one more conductive wire woven with high-strength aluminum-silicon nanotubes, adopt a pantograph mode similar to a tram. In this way, the design can also reduce the payload of about 10 kilograms from the cable car's own weight.
The security of this system is definitely unquestionable.
Because the cable car can use various self-locking mechanisms to avoid the problem of sudden fall.
The only issue that needs to be considered is the overall cost.
The cost of cables is actually not high, even two, one load-bearing cable and one special cable.
According to the current data, the cost of load-bearing cables is about 1,225 yuan per kilometer (35 kilograms) and special cables are 875 yuan per kilometer (25 kilograms).
With the pipeline protection shell, supporting columns and other supporting facilities, the average single line cost per kilometer is about 5,000 to 6,000 yuan.
If you want to cover the hot spots in the entire Shanmei urban area, the single line will cost at least 200 kilometers, which is almost a material cost of 1 million to 1.2 million.
Plus construction and land use costs.
Together, a 200-kilometer line costs about 5 million.
After estimating this cost, Jiang Miao also figured out why Fengmei Takeaway would consider building a city sky car system to deliver takeaway.
You should know that with the technical strength of Hailufeng Company, this system can basically be used for about 20 years. The maintenance cost for 20 years is probably about the same as the overall construction cost.
In other words, this system calculates that the annual depreciation fee is about 500,000 yuan.
How many takeaway orders do you need to give in a year to earn back 500,000?
Based on the current average price of Fengmei Takeaway, which earns 1.7 yuan per order, it takes 294,118 orders per year, with an average of about 24,500 orders per month.
However, Fengmei Takeaway currently is in Shanmei City, and can receive takeaway orders of 200,000 to 300,000 orders per month.
In other words, it takes about one month's gross profit to maintain this distribution system.
So what expenditures can this system reduce?
First of all, it is impossible to reduce delivery personnel, because the Tianche system cannot deliver to households. There must be delivery personnel for short-distance delivery. At the same time, the delivery personnel also need to go to the store to get takeout or goods.
This is equivalent to reducing the intermediate transportation links, and it can effectively reduce delivery time, reduce delivery personnel's vehicle expenditure and insurance expenditure, and improve customer satisfaction.
The sky car system does not need to wait for traffic lights, it can also ignore traffic congestion, it can also be unimpeded by wind and rain, and it is not afraid of the severe cold and heat. With AI-assisted management, it can even be delivered 24 hours a day.
Currently, Fengmei Takeaway’s takeaways are formal employees, so the delivery staff’s small electric donkeys and car insurance are all paid by the company, which is the money that can be saved.
Considering that the delivery order density in the suburbs is relatively small, it can be used to cooperate with the food delivery drone.
The two systems are combined, and delivery drones are used in long-distance suburbs, and the sky car system is used in close-distance urban areas.
It not only avoids the risk of drones entering cities on a large scale, but also provides efficient delivery, while reducing the labor intensity of delivery workers.
If robotics technology is developed enough in the future, you can also consider allowing deliverymen to control robots in the office to replace delivery workers' close-range delivery work.
Of course, Jiang Miao didn't know which model was better.
Anyway, Hailufeng Company now has huge capital reserves, and Fengmei Takeaway's experimental tests are only a few million yuan, which is a drop in the bucket for Hailufeng Company.
The cost difference between delivery drones and delivery vans is actually not much.
Although the delivery drone is just a drone flying around, the supporting costs behind it are actually not very high, such as communication base stations, remote control personnel, control centers, etc. These supporting facilities must be kept up.
The advantage of the Tianche system is that it does not require base stations and too many remote control personnel.
For example, drones are similar to cars on roads, while skytrain systems are similar to trains on railways.
Freight trains with special lines can easily achieve unmanned automated driving, but if cars on the road are to achieve unmanned automated driving, the difficulty will increase sharply.
Because the variables of these two systems are different.
A traffic system with fixed specialized right of road has very few internal variables.
For those traffic systems that do not have fixed right of road, the internal variables are very large, and there are many variables that are invaded by foreign countries.
Drones and cars are traffic systems without fixed rights to road.
High-speed rail, subway, light rail and sky train are traffic systems with fixed road rights.
Those so-called driverless cars, although they are so hyped, will still cause traffic accidents as long as they enter the real highway system to operate. The reason is that the highway system cannot be closed and there is no way to prohibit the entry of pedestrians, animals, and human-driven cars.
No matter how powerful the algorithm is, the autonomous driving system cannot judge the entire situation on the road 100%.
As long as humans appear in the driver's seat, it represents infinite possibilities.
Such as fatigue driving, drunk driving, road anger, newcomer killer, female driver, intentional car removal, racing, natural disasters, etc., when encountering this situation, artificial intelligence cannot respond 100% reasonably.
Finally, it is necessary to use manual intervention.
But manual intervention takes time.
Sometimes a serious traffic accident leaves the driver with a few seconds.
Can a remote control personnel who have just started forced manual intervention determine the entire situation in just a few seconds?
The answer is self-evident.
Obviously it is impossible.
It's like sitting in the office drinking tea, suddenly the space jumps to the driving seat of the car on the highway, and there are several out-of-control cars in front of you. Can you make the correct judgment in an instant?
Whoever is changed will be confused.
As for relying on AI to identify and process it, and after the AI calculates it, the daylily is probably cold.
The computing power of many on-board computers is not enough and must be supplemented by the computing power of the control center. Data transmission takes time and it also takes time to calculate a better strategy. It takes several seconds, or even more than ten seconds, when it comes back and forth.
But sometimes traffic accidents don’t give you a few seconds at all, it’s almost a moment.
Unless it is mandatory that all cars can only use autonomous driving, and the safety of unmanned autonomous driving can be maximized under the control of the same autonomous driving AI center.
The same goes for drones.
At this stage, unmanned drones are simply not able to be realized, and these drones require remote control by professionals.
As long as people control themselves behind the scenes, an accident is inevitable.
Although Jiang Miao is optimistic about the Tianche system, he did not stop Fengmei takeaway from testing the delivery drone system.
After all, who can tell the future is accurate.
If one day AI performance goes further and the chip computing power is further improved, the drone may be able to achieve real unmanned control.
As a large group, when investing in technology, the most taboo thing is to go black. The better strategy is to place long bets.
Small companies like to bet.
I want the big group.
Japan and Cyris are a living example in the new energy industry.
Japan is like a small company. Their resources are only enough to support investment in a technical route, so they choose to bet on hydrogen energy.
Cyris was large and chose to place bets on a long basis, while avoiding Japan's patent barriers in the field of hydrogen energy.
In the end, Japan was defeated.
(This chapter ends)