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DHL and EHang to tackle last mile challenges
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HL Express has entered a strategic partnership with autonomous aerial vehicle company EHang to launch drone deliveries to tackle last mile challenges in China. The launch ceremony was held on 16 May at the EHang Command and Control Center in Guangzhou with senior executives from both companies in attendance. The customised route has been created exclusively for a DHL customer and covers a distance of approximately eight kilometres between the customer premises and the DHL service centre in Liaobu, Dongguan, Guangdong Province. Using the most advanced unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in EHang’s Falcon series, the drone delivery overcomes complex road conditions and traffic congestion in urban areas. It reduces one-way delivery time from 40 minutes to only eight minutes and can save costs of up to 80% per delivery, with reduced energy consumption and carbon footprint. Wu Dongming, CEO of DHL Express China says: “We are delighted to be partnering with EHang to set a new innovation milestone with this new fully-automated and intelligent drone
logistics solution, which combines the strength of the world’s largest international express company together with one of the leading UAV companies in the world.” Hu Huazhi, founder and CEO of EHang says: “Together with DHL we are very glad to bring the first smart drone delivery service route to China in Guangzhou; this marks a new beginning in building air logistics for smart cities.” The EHang Falcon has eight propellers on four arms and is designed with multiple redundant systems for full backup, and smart and secure flight control modules. Its features include vertical take-off and landing, GPS and visual identification, smart flight path planning, fully-automated flight and real-time network connection and scheduling. The drones can carry up to five kilos of cargo per flight, take off and land on top of intelligent cabinets that were specifically developed for the fully autonomous loading and offloading of the shipment. The intelligent cabinets connect with automated processes including sorting, scanning and storage, and will feature high-tech functions such as facial recognition and ID scanning.
DHL deploys next-gen smart glasses
DHL Supply Chain is expanding the deployment of Smart Glasses and wearables with the use of second-generation of Glass Enterprise Edition. The device can virtually support the vision picking process in warehouses, with augmented reality driving a more accurate, productive and efficient picking process. The use of smart glasses in contract logistics has convinced other DHL business units, with DHL Express planning to use wearables in its hubs. Smart glasses were pilots at DHL Supply Chain in 2015 before making them a standard in warehouse operations. Following test runs in the USA, Europe and the UK, they have been rolled out and DHL is now using vision picking, a picking process supported with augmented reality in most geo-
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ACW 27 MAY 2019
aircargoweek.com
graphical regions. The express division uses smart glasses at its Brussels, Belgium freight hub and at Los Angeles Airport, USA with further deployments planned at New York, Cincinnati and Chicago airports. Markus Voss, COO and CIO of DHL Supply Chain says: “The possibility of object recognition is also particularly promising for us in industrial applications. With the corresponding software, it is no longer just possible to read out barcodes, locate products and display the corresponding storage compartment; in future, also complex objects can be identified with the smart glasses.” Improvements to the latest generation of smart glasses include longer battery life, a processor that is twice as fast and shorter charging times.