The Chinese delivery giant Meituan flies drones between skyscrapers to kiosks around the city.

中国外卖巨头美团的无人机正穿梭于高楼大厦和城内各处的智能空投柜之间。

My iced tea arrived from the sky.

我的冰茶从天而降。

In a buzzy urban area in Shenzhen， China， sandwiched between several skyscrapers， I watched as a yellow-and-black drone descended onto a pickup kiosk by the street. The top of the vending-machine-size kiosk opened up for the drone to land， and a white cardboard box containing my drink was placed inside. When I had made the delivery order on my phone half an hour before， the app noted that it would arrive by drone at 2：03 p.m.， and that was exactly when it came.

在中国深圳繁华的市区里，周围是高楼大厦，我看到一架黄黑相间的无人机降落在街道旁的一个智能空投柜上。自动售货机般大小的空投柜从顶部打开，无人机降落其中，卸下装有我饮料的白色纸箱。半小时前，我在手机上下单，软件显示饮料将在下午2∶03由无人机送达，而这正是它到达的时间。

The drone delivery service I was trying out is operated by Meituan， China’s most popular food delivery platform. The company has been developing drone delivery since 2017.

我正在体验的无人机送餐服务是由中国最受欢迎的外卖平台美团运营的。该公司自2017年以来一直在研发无人机配送。

For some Shenzhen residents and vendors， delivery by drone is no longer a novelty—it’s just part of their daily routine.

对于一些深圳居民和商户来说，无人机配送已经不是新鲜事了，这只是他们日常生活的一部分。

The rooftop “airport”

楼顶“机场”

Meituan launches its drones in Shenzhen from five delivery hubs. My tea actually came from one that was only a few hundred feet away， on the rooftop of a gigantic shopping mall. There， the building’s rooftop has been turned into an airport for the drones and a handful of support staff.

美团在深圳设有五个无人机配送中心。实际上，我的茶就来自仅几百英尺之外一家巨型商场的天台。这栋建筑的楼顶已经改装成了无人机起降场，只有为数不多的几个工作人员在场。

The workflow is a mix of human and automated labor. Once the drone delivery system gets an order （customers order specific items marked for drone delivery in the company’s app）， a runner （human） goes to the restaurants， all located a few flights down in the shopping mall， to pick up the order and brings it to the launchpad. The runner places the food and drinks in a standardized cardboard box， weighs it to make sure it’s not too heavy， seals the box， and hands it off to a different worker who specializes in dealing with the drones. The second worker places the box under a drone and waits for it to lock in.

工作流程是人机协同的。当无人机配送系统接到订单（客户在公司应用程序上下单了标有无人机配送的特定商品），配送员（真人）就会去楼下商场里的餐厅取餐，再送至天台起降场。配送员把餐食和饮料装入标准纸箱里称重，确认不超重后进行封装，再转交给专职无人机操作员。操作员将货箱置于无人机下方，等待它自动抓取。

Everything after that is highly automated， says Mao Yinian， the director of drone delivery services at Meituan. The drones’ movements are controlled by a central algorithm， and the routes are predetermined. “You can know in advance， at every precise second， where each drone will be and how fast its speed is， so the customers can expect the arrival time with a deviation of two seconds， instead of three minutes or even 10 minutes （when it comes to traditional delivery），” he tells MIT Technology Review.

美团无人机业务负责人毛一年表示，在那之后的所有流程都是高度自动化的。