Meituan Robotics Institute Shares Insights on Drone Safety Reliability, PHM Technology, UAV Localization and Tactile Sensing

On April 25 afternoon, Meituan Robotics Institute held a sharing event titled "Drone Safety Reliability Analysis and Practice" at Nanshan Zhiyuan office venue, co-organized by Tsinghua i-Space and Beihang University Shenzhen Research Institute.

Meituan drone reliability analysis and comprehensive testing lead Li Teacher explained concepts, Meituan's safety reliability construction, and specific applications of drone reliability testing, covering system, software, hardware, structure, etc. Meituan's fourth‑generation drone implements key subsystem redundancy, fail‑operational for power, flight control, battery, sensors, positioning, communication, and fail‑safe for SOC, achieving three‑level safety protection with graduated degradation: normal operation → redundant backup → safe landing → parachute deployment. The intelligent parachute uses an ejection design and space‑grade canopy, protected by a high‑safety‑level controller.

Tang Huan, director of Beihang University's Intelligent Testing and Health Management Technology Laboratory, shared the development history, system construction, robotics applications, and future importance of PHM in AI, noting current challenges lie in fault feature vector extraction and high‑precision fault prediction, and that combining frontier PHM technologies can build a system covering condition monitoring, fault diagnosis, fault prediction, and health assessment for adaptive feature extraction and accurate prediction.

About Meituan Reliability Lab: located in Beijing Shunyi District, the lab houses 26 sets of advanced equipment, offering six categories and over 15 reliability test items, and obtained CNAS accreditation in January 2024. Cooperation inquiries can be sent to [email protected].

On May 30, Meituan Robotics Institute jointly hosted with Tsinghua University Shenzhen International Graduate School a "Robot Multimodal Perception Technology Sharing" at Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School Information Building Room 501.

Meituan drone algorithm engineer Duan Teacher presented "All‑Weather Close‑Range UAV Positioning Technology", describing Meituan UAV business growth: by end of March 2024, UAVs operated 28 routes across 11 commercial districts in Shenzhen, Shanghai, etc., serving office, scenic, municipal park, medical, campus scenarios, with over 250,000 orders delivered. He outlined positioning challenges in complex urban environments, varying illumination, rain/snow/fog, and introduced the team's new technical explorations in all‑weather close‑range positioning, envisioning UAV technology as a key part of urban air‑traffic networks.

Wenbo Ding from Tsinghua University Shenzhen International Graduate School shared "Fusion of Vision and Touch: Flexible Tactile Perception Technology for Object Recognition and Grasping", discussing his lab’s work on flexible electronic skin multimodal sensors and multispectral visual‑tactile fusion architecture, and the prospects of tactile sensing in embodied intelligence and humanoid robots, while advising on career planning: pursue what truly fits you, embrace hidden opportunities.