Shenzhen SF Express and Shenzhen Metro Group Launch Nation's First Orbital Logistics Station
TapTechNews October 2nd news, on September 30th, Shenzhen SF Express jointly with Shenzhen Metro Group launched the nation's first orbital logistics station, creating a seamless low-altitude-air-rail combined transport logistics network of 'aerial drones + ground stations + underground driverless vehicles + subways'.
The operating hours of the Shenzhen Futian orbital logistics station are from 9:30 am to 11:00 pm, which is the same as other commercial stores in the Futian hub. This station undertakes the takeoff and landing tasks of drones. Drones fly directly from the area where the surrounding couriers are located to the Futian subway station, delivering the packages to the orbital logistics hub, and after sorting, loading, and security checks at the station, they are sent to the subway. The introduction of drones saves 50% of the collection time for the packages that were previously transported by commercial vehicles.
On that day, in the Futian hub station, the Shenzhen SF Express intelligent image exhibition hall also opened to welcome guests. The exhibition hall is open-plan, and there are building delivery robots, unmanned delivery vehicles, Ark (ARK) 80 drones, remote driving cabins and other SF Express intelligent applications neatly displayed on site.
In addition, there is a Fengchao intelligent locker on site in the exhibition hall. This is also the nation's first Fengchao locker installed in a subway station. According to the introduction, during the National Day holiday, Fengchao will also simultaneously deploy intelligent lockers in more than 20 subway stations in Shenzhen, which can meet the needs of passengers for sending and storing packages in the subway stations.
Shenzhen SF Express mainly realizes the short-distance connection between the ground and the subway station through unmanned delivery vehicles. All the express items transported by subway are sorted, loaded, and security-checked on the spot at the Futian hub station, and then handed over to the unmanned delivery vehicle to be sent to the logistics carriage along a fixed route.
At present, 10 unmanned connection vehicles have been put into use at this station, adopting a backpack-type unmanned delivery vehicle structure. Warehouse staff will stack the outgoing items to be delivered on the cage car and push the cage on to the car on time, with fully automated loading and unloading. The vehicle has a volume of about 3 cubic meters and a full load of 500 kilograms, with one cage per vehicle. This vehicle uses a brand-new fusion perception scheme, equipped with 2 lidar and 12 cameras, with a perception range of 120 meters and 360-degree omni-directional environmental perception, and can recognize traffic lights, lane lines, obstacles, etc.
TapTechNews learned from public information that in November 2023, the first 'air-rail combined transport' logistics demonstration line in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area started operation in Shenzhen, adopting the'mode of hub to station', and carried out joint logistics transportation between the Futian hub - Bihaiwan subway station - Shenzhen SF Express Bao'an aviation hub to realize the delivery of express items by subway. Since the operation of this demonstration line, the daily transportation volume has exceeded 30,000 items.