On June 6, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued 5G commercial licenses to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Radio and Television. This means that the 5G commercial curtain in China has been officially opened for many years. Nowadays, the discussion of 5G is hot, and the commercial application of 5G is sprouting everywhere. In the field of logistics, machine sorting applications, information coordination, express face encryption, and open data platforms are driving the entire logistics industry to develop intelligently. Then, after the arrival of 5G, will it cause a huge change in the logistics industry?

In the opinion of experts, 5G first brings about the qualitative leap of Internet of Things technology, which will promote the logistics industry to realize the transformation of intelligent logistics mode based on "Internet of Things + artificial intelligence". Vehicles, goods and warehouses truly realize interconnection and interaction, logistics The intelligence will accelerate the implementation. For the industry, 5G will bring new technical competition, both opportunities and challenges.

How 5G will change the logistics industry

5G, the full name of the fifth generation of mobile communication technology, is also considered to be the beginning of the Internet of Everything. Compared with 4G, the theoretical downlink speed of 5G is 10Gb/s, which can reach 100 times of 4G speed. "High speed, large capacity, low latency", this is the three characteristics of 5G. Many industry insiders interviewed that 5G not only brings speed changes to the logistics industry, but also has the potential to reshape and promote rapid changes in the industry.

"If 4G changes life, 5G will change the world. Because 4G still cannot fully adapt to hotspot technologies such as Internet of Things and artificial intelligence in terms of bandwidth, delay and access characteristics, the arrival of 5G will overcome many shortcomings of 4G. , bringing revolutionary changes to the field of logistics, etc., said Xiang Feng, vice president of Yuantong.

Yan Xuefeng, deputy dean of the Suning Logistics Research Institute, said that the low-latency network transmission technology allows the information related to logistics operations to reach the device, the operator and the management terminal more quickly, so that the end-to-end seamless connection. The big leap of Internet of Things technology will change the original logistics information is the drawback of fragmentation, more comprehensive environmental information is obtained, and form a more useful "data chain". Moreover, artificial intelligence has more entry points in the field of logistics, and truly empowers the logistics industry.

Yang Daqing, a special researcher at the China Institute of Logistics, believes that 5G will bring at least three changes to the industry: First, the popularization of intelligent applications of equipment and facilities, and more applications such as unmanned vehicles, drones, and storage robots. It is released from the low-end labor; the second is the interconnection and interaction between people and cars, goods and warehouses. The Internet of Things and AI technology will make cars, goods and warehouses anthropomorphic and communicate with people to achieve more efficient interaction; The dynamic, transparent and intelligent service, for example, in the supply chain financial services, in the past to do static warehouse receipts pledge, but in the 5G era, some high value-added goods can be realized in the transit bill pledge.

Promote the acceleration of logistics intelligence

5G can be said to be the golden stone of the Internet of Things to achieve the goal of all things connected. Previously, most logistics companies laid the foundation for the intelligent development of logistics in the 5G era through the layout of intelligent logistics technology represented by drones, unmanned vehicles, unmanned warehouses, human-computer interaction, etc., and also provided imagination. From the perspective of application scenarios, 5G technologies may bring changes in smart logistics parks, automatic sorting, cold chain, cellular Internet of Things, and drone distribution.

Taking rookie as an example, last year, rookie defined the Internet of Things strategy as the key to the development of intelligent logistics. Xu Jun, chief architect of rookie, said that 5G helps accelerate the layout and development of automated warehousing and logistics autopilot. "Because the 4G rate is limited, the WiFi network is usually used to dispatch robots in the industry. However, the WiFi network coverage is small, and the network needs to be frequently switched. There are problems such as network instability and network delay, which affects the operation efficiency of the robot. These problems will be solved in the 5G era. The operation of the warehousing and distribution center is more stable and efficient. In addition, the rookie will accelerate the large-scale application of logistics unmanned vehicles."

Xiangfeng believes that 5G also has some special scenarios in the new-generation logistics industry, such as the realization of augmented reality technology, including assisting employees to complete sorting and assisting couriers in identifying house numbers; in the logistics system of cold chain supply, nodes can Temperature regulation and item tracking through 5G connected remote cloud logistics architecture.

For practitioners, Yan Xuefeng believes that the realization of network technologies such as massive Internet of Things and enhanced outdoor wireless broadband will further enrich and deepen the application of vehicle networking, which will greatly enhance the safety of truck driving and the comfort of drivers. . Suning Logistics further believes that with 5G, blockchain, and Internet of Things technologies, we can easily control the actions and processes of the entire link, and create smart parks, unmanned warehouses, unmanned transportation, and “last mile” through scenario interconnection. Unmanned distribution, as well as specialized segmentation logistics areas such as cold chain logistics.

Not only is it a change for the industry and practitioners, but in Xu Jun's view, 5G can also bring a better logistics experience to consumers. “For example, at present, we can predict the trajectory of packages through artificial intelligence technology. In 5G In the era, consumers may be able to track their packages in real time."

Active layout of the industry is both an opportunity and a challenge

5G is of great significance to logistics. Throughout the development of the technology industry, the underlying technology is a priority, and this change is irreversible. Technological change is the driving force behind industrial change. The emergence of new technologies will inevitably promote the continuous progress of society. As a new breakthrough technology to change the industrial structure, 5G will also promote the development of the logistics industry.

According to the forecast of China Information and Communication Research Institute, according to the formal commercialization of 5G in 2020, it is expected that during the period of 2020-2025, China's 5G development will directly drive the total economic output of 10.6 trillion yuan, directly creating an economic added value of 3.3 trillion yuan. Direct employment reached 3.1 million.

Obviously, 5G will bring new technical competition, and most companies think it is both an opportunity and a challenge. The interview understands that the industry is also actively taking action. Alibaba's logistics platform rookie and China Unicom and Yuantong Express jointly created the “5G Express Distribution Center”, which is said to greatly improve the efficiency and stability of automatic parcel packaging after completion. SF is researching machine vision, including cold chain visualization in 5G. Under the innovative application; Debon and Guangdong Unicom set up a 5G joint innovation laboratory for express logistics, which will conduct research in the areas of the Internet of Things, the “last mile” Internet of Things, and the cold chain logistics.

"Although 5G will not come soon, I think that at least at this stage, some of the innovations we have made should be based on 5G. The most basic thing is to reserve space for 5G development. Once the 5G era arrives, the equipment must be able to Access." Xu Jun said.

Xiang Feng believes that data security must also be taken seriously after 5G. Because of its high bandwidth, 5G enables the blockchain to perform key calculation and data processing more efficiently, and maintain logistics with the upstream e-commerce platform security solution. The security of the system enables logistics companies and consumer users as well as e-commerce companies to operate with peace of mind.

“5G brings a comprehensive change of service to digital logistics and supply chain services, but technical adaptation is a gradual process for many people. In this process, talent warfare is the key, which includes both the application of new technologies to adapt to new technologies. The logistics people also include the upgrading and reshaping of the traditional human resources." In Yang Daqing's view, after the arrival of 5G, new requirements were placed on the reserve of talents.