Food Delivery by Drone Is Just Part of Daily Life in Shenzhen無人機送餐已成深圳日常

The Chinese delivery giant Meituan flies drones between skyscrapers to kiosks around the city.

中國外賣巨頭美團的無人機正穿梭于高樓大廈和城內各處的智能空投柜之間。

My iced tea arrived from the sky.

我的冰茶從天而降。

In a buzzy urban area in Shenzhen， China， sandwiched between several skyscrapers， I watched as a yellow-and-black drone descended onto a pickup kiosk by the street. The top of the vending-machine-size kiosk opened up for the drone to land， and a white cardboard box containing my drink was placed inside. When I had made the delivery order on my phone half an hour before， the app noted that it would arrive by drone at 2：03 p.m.， and that was exactly when it came.

在中國深圳繁華的市區里，周圍是高樓大廈，我看到一架黃黑相間的無人機降落在街道旁的一個智能空投柜上。自動售貨機般大小的空投柜從頂部打開，無人機降落其中，卸下裝有我飲料的白色紙箱。半小時前，我在手機上下單，軟件顯示飲料將在下午2∶03由無人機送達，而這正是它到達的時間。

The drone delivery service I was trying out is operated by Meituan， China’s most popular food delivery platform. The company has been developing drone delivery since 2017.

我正在體驗的無人機送餐服務是由中國最受歡迎的外賣平臺美團運營的。該公司自2017年以來一直在研發無人機配送。

For some Shenzhen residents and vendors， delivery by drone is no longer a novelty—it’s just part of their daily routine.

對于一些深圳居民和商戶來說，無人機配送已經不是新鮮事了，這只是他們日常生活的一部分。

The rooftop “airport”

樓頂“機場”

Meituan launches its drones in Shenzhen from five delivery hubs. My tea actually came from one that was only a few hundred feet away， on the rooftop of a gigantic shopping mall. There， the building’s rooftop has been turned into an airport for the drones and a handful of support staff.

美團在深圳設有五個無人機配送中心。實際上，我的茶就來自僅幾百英尺之外一家巨型商場的天臺。這棟建筑的樓頂已經改裝成了無人機起降場，只有為數不多的幾個工作人員在場。

The workflow is a mix of human and automated labor. Once the drone delivery system gets an order （customers order specific items marked for drone delivery in the company’s app）， a runner （human） goes to the restaurants， all located a few flights down in the shopping mall， to pick up the order and brings it to the launchpad. The runner places the food and drinks in a standardized cardboard box， weighs it to make sure it’s not too heavy， seals the box， and hands it off to a different worker who specializes in dealing with the drones. The second worker places the box under a drone and waits for it to lock in.

工作流程是人機協同的。當無人機配送系統接到訂單（客戶在公司應用程序上下單了標有無人機配送的特定商品），配送員（真人）就會去樓下商場里的餐廳取餐，再送至天臺起降場。配送員把餐食和飲料裝入標準紙箱里稱重，確認不超重后進行封裝，再轉交給專職無人機操作員。操作員將貨箱置于無人機下方，等待它自動抓取。

Everything after that is highly automated， says Mao Yinian， the director of drone delivery services at Meituan. The drones’ movements are controlled by a central algorithm， and the routes are predetermined. “You can know in advance， at every precise second， where each drone will be and how fast its speed is， so the customers can expect the arrival time with a deviation of two seconds， instead of three minutes or even 10 minutes （when it comes to traditional delivery），” he tells MIT Technology Review.

美團無人機業務負責人毛一年表示，在那之后的所有流程都是高度自動化的。無人機的移動由中央算法控制，飛行路線是預設好的。他告訴《麻省理工科技評論》：“每架無人機的位置與航速可以精確到秒預知，因此預估送達時間誤差僅兩秒，而不是（傳統配送的）三分鐘甚至十分鐘?！?/p>

The company has a centralized control room in Shenzhen， where staff can take control of a drone in an emergency. There are now more than a hundred drones that can be deployed for deliveries in the city. On average， one operator is watching 10 drones at the same time.

美團在深圳設有一個中央控制室，工作人員可以在緊急情況下控制無人機?，F在深圳有超過一百架無人機可投入運行。平均一名操作員可同時監視10架無人機。

Regulatory and safety constraints

監管和安全制度

Regulation often determines where companies choose to set up shop1. The Shenzhen municipal government has a strong drone manufacturing supply chain and has been particularly friendly toward the industry. On a national policy level， the central government has also permitted Shenzhen， one of the country’s designated Special Economic Zones， to have more flexibility when it comes to commercial drone legislation.

政策導向常常決定公司業務布局。深圳市政府擁有強大的無人機制造供應鏈，對該行業特別友好。在國家政策層面上，中央政府還允許深圳——國家指定的經濟特區之一——在商用無人機法規方面擁有較大的靈活性。

That’s why Meituan has chosen Shenzhen to carry out the majority of its drone delivery experiments so far.

這就是為什么美團選擇在深圳進行迄今大部分的無人機配送試點。

“The industry used to avoid urban areas because the technology was not advanced enough to guarantee it’s safe，” Mao says. By the time he joined Meituan to head the drone delivery team in 2019， about six years after other companies had piloted rural drone delivery programs in China， he made the judgment that the technology had become safe enough to operate in cities.

毛一年表示，“無人機配送過去常常避開市區，因為技術還不夠先進，無法保證安全”。2019年他加入美團執掌無人機配送團隊時，其他公司在中國農村試點無人機配送已有六年。那時他判定，相關技術已經足夠安全，可以在城市中運營了。

Across the world， delivery drones haven’t injured any humans， but they do occasionally crash， resulting in bush fires and power outages.

在世界各地，送貨無人機未曾造成任何人員受傷，但偶爾會墜毀，導致灌木叢起火和停電。

Meituan has made technical adjustments to make sure its drones can safely fly in cities， like opting for wing designs that are more stable in strong winds and developing its own navigation system based on computer vision to complement weak GPS signals between buildings.

美團已經進行了技術調整，確保其無人機可以在城市中安全飛行，比如采用在強風中更穩定的機翼設計，自主研發基于計算機視覺的導航系統，以彌補建筑物之間GPS信號弱的問題。

Drones vs. humans？

配送用無人機還是騎手？

Some vendors and customers have already gotten used to the Meituan drones.

一些商戶和客戶已經習慣了美團無人機配送。

I spoke to a restaurant server at the mall who said her restaurant was one of the first adopters of the drone delivery service. The drones used to be unable to deliver during rainy days， but then the technology improved. Nowadays， the restaurant can fill dozens of orders through drone delivery every day.

我和那家商場的一位餐廳服務員交談，她說自己工作的餐廳是首批采用無人機配送的餐廳之一。過去，無人機無法在雨天配送，但后來技術得到了改進。如今，這家餐廳每天可以通過無人機配送完成數十份訂單。

One reason she likes drone delivery is that the service is more predictable， while the behavior of delivery workers can vary.

她青睞無人機配送的一個原因是，無人機服務更具可預測性，而人工配送員的行為卻存在變數。

“If it really becomes a mature technology， it will be so much more efficient，” she says. “But also， a lot of people across the country would lose their jobs.”

“如果無人機技術真的變成熟了，效率會高得多?！彼f，“但是，全國各地會有很多人失業?！?/p>

The same preference for drones over delivery workers can also be heard from customers. Not long after I got my iced tea from the drone， a second drone arrived at the same pickup spot. Wang， a tech worker from a nearby office who wished to be identified only by her last name， came with two friends to pick up the fruit she’d ordered. She makes such orders almost daily and finds it quite convenient.

同樣，相比人工配送，客戶也更喜歡無人機配送。在我取走無人機送來的冰茶不久后，第二架無人機就到達了同一個空投柜。只愿意透露姓氏的王女士是在附近上班的技術人員，她和兩個朋友一起來取她點的水果。她幾乎每天都這樣下單，并且覺得很方便。

“Compared to ordinary deliveries， it’s quicker and more sustainable， since the cardboard packages can be recycled. Plus， I don’t have to communicate with the delivery workers，” Wang said.

王女士說：“和普通配送相比，它更快、更環?！埌灏b可以回收利用。而且，我不用和騎手溝通?！?/p>

Mao says Meituan is not planning to replace all delivery workers; he says the main goal is for drones to complement humans. They might deliver packages to places workers can’t go， like tourist attractions that require ticketed entries， or perform urgent tasks that would be difficult for humans to pull off2.

毛一年表示，美團并不打算用無人機替代所有人工配送員，主要是用無人機與人力互補。它們可以把包裹送到騎手到不了的地方，比如需要憑票入場的旅游景點，或者執行人類難以完成的緊急任務。

In an ideal future， drones may make up 5% or 10% of all delivery orders， Mao says. But a precise target isn’t what he’s after—he says he’s more interested in making sure that drone delivery actually adds value for customers and becomes an easy-to-use delivery method.

毛一年說，將來的理想情況是，無人機配送占所有配送訂單的5%或10%。但是，他所追求的不是精確占比——他說，他更感興趣的是確保無人機配送給客戶帶來增值，并成為一種便捷的配送方式。

As for the sci-fi vision of drone delivery straight to your window？ “In the longer run， I believe it will become true， but that could be 20 to 30 years from now，” Mao says. “Because it would take 20 to 30 years to update urban infrastructure， particularly when it comes to residential buildings.”

無人機直接送貨到你窗口的科幻愿景會實現嗎？ “從長遠來看，我相信這會成為現實，但可能需要二三十年的時間，”毛一年說，“因為城市基礎設施的更新需要二三十年，住宅尤其如此?！?/p>

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎者）

1 set up shop開業，開張。

2 pull something off成功做成（困難或出乎意料的事）。