JINAN, April 7 (Xinhua) -- An unmanned delivery vehicle pulled up in front of Zhou Li, a resident in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. After scanning the QR code on its side, she collected her order -- beer, sausage and roasted nuts -- before the vehicle quietly drove away on its own.
"I never imagined groceries could be delivered this way," Zhou said, still amazed by her first experience with the self-driving delivery vehicle. Costing 9.9 yuan (about 1.44 U.S. dollars) per time for deliveries within 30 km, the service was, in her view, reasonably priced.
In the coastal city of Qingdao, autonomous delivery vehicles are now a familiar sight on the streets. With no driver's section or steering wheel, the boxy vehicles resemble compact metal containers, measuring roughly half the size of a standard passenger car. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the vehicle can plan routes, recognize road conditions, detect traffic lights and nearby obstacles, and brake or maneuver to avoid collisions.
So far, unmanned delivery vehicles in China handle major tasks such as transporting packages from distribution hubs to local nodes and providing on-time delivery of perishable goods and cold-chain medicines. Some are also used in logistics within industrial parks. (....)