The PAIMO-DE disinfection robot developed by Partner Robot Technology Co Photo: Courtesy of Shao Weixia

Various kinds of unmanned robots are being used in Shanghai to battle the latest round of the Omicron variant outbreak. Unmanned disinfection robots and delivery robots have helped to reduce human contact and cut the infection risks.

Partner Robot Technology Co (PRWs), an unmanned robot manufacturer in Shanghai, deployed its disinfection robots on April 13 at a food transmission hub in Jingan district, Shanghai. The robots conducted environmental disinfection work as required by the local government, the company told the Global Times on Monday. 

The PAIMO-DE disinfection robot developed by PRWs can perform different functions such as disinfection or measuring temperature. "The robots can disinfect indoor environments and will not harm the quality of food," said Kong Bing, founder and CEO of the company. He also said that the robots use health-friendly disinfectants, which was mixed by the company to minimize the harm to food. 

Kong noted that the robots save manpower during the daily disinfection routines and do a more accurate job than humans. "A robot can disinfect 1,000 square meters in 15 minutes, which helps the transmission hub to process 30 tons of vegetable each day," said Kong. 

Food delivery platform Meituan Grocery told the Global Times on Monday that the platform dispatched a batch of autonomous delivery vehicles from Beijing to Shanghai recently, to help with "the last mile" in the food supply chain. 

According to the platform, the autonomous delivery vehicles have been deployed to 10 communities including Ruijin Hospital under Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Fudan University. They are helping to deliver food and medical materials and samples. 

As of Sunday, autonomous delivery vehicles have completed over 100,000 delivery orders in Shanghai. The maximum capacity of the whole 50-vehicle-squad is estimated to reach 20,000 orders per day.

Beijing-based autonomous driving startup Haomo.AI said it has also launched a terminal logistics automatic distribution vehicle to facilitate last mile delivery.

The company said on Tuesday that it expected to launch an updated version of the vehicle priced at around 128,800 yuan ($19,810) in May.

Representatives from the firm also said they are mulling over plans to introduce a smart pilot assisted driving system which will be capable of automatic lane change and traffic light recognition. The system is about to hit more than 100 cities covering more than one million vehicles.

Global Times