Hikers on the Great Wall of China can now get food orders to be served to them from the air.
Meituan, a major Chinese food delivery company, has revealed that its new drone service, which debuted last week, will carry food, drinks, and other items, including medical supplies, to customers at a remote area of the historic monument outside of Beijing.
The first drone service in the capital is part of the rapidly expanding drone delivery industry in China, the largest producer and exporter of consumer drones worldwide. The sector has made life easier for people who reside in remote, difficult-to-reach rural locations as well as cities.
The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) take off from a rooftop hotel and land on a watchtower on Badaling's southern extension, the most visited part of the extensive network of fortifications extending throughout northern China.
Since its initial opening to the public in 1958, the picturesque Badaling area has welcomed over 200 million tourists from both domestic and foreign locations.Travellers use their phones to scan a QR code at the delivery location and then use the meal delivery platform to place an order.An employee retrieves an order from a neighbouring store and transports it to the hotel rooftop, where it is wrapped and measured.The package is then fastened to the drone by an operator, and it takes off automatically towards the watchtower, where a different employee is waiting to collect it and give it to the client.
Previously, the walk would have taken fifty minutes; now, it just takes five.
Meituan claims that the drones can carry up to 2.3 kilograms (about 5lb) of cargo every flight, even in moderate wind and rain.The drones are then loaded with trash by workers before flying to recycling facilities, so they don't return empty.
According to state-run Beijing Youth Daily, the cost of a drone delivery is simply 4 yuan (42 pence), the same as that of a standard Meituan delivery. Beijing, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, and other province-level areas are located along the Great Wall, which stretches over 20,000km and is made up of numerous interconnecting walls. In the northwest, it stretches into Gansu and Xinjiang.
