One billion people in the world today do not have access to all-season roads. One billion people. One seventh of the Earth's population are totally cut off for some part of the year. We cannot get medicine to them reliably, they cannot get critical supplies, and they cannot get their goods to market in order to create a sustainable income. In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, 85 percent of roads are unusable in the wet season. Investments are being made, but at the current level, it's estimated it's going to take them 50 years to catch up. In the U.S. alone, there's more than four million miles of roads, very expensive to build, very expensive to maintain infrastructure, with a huge ecological footprint, and yet, very often, congested.
今天世界上有十億人 不能使用全天候皆能運作的道路。 一億人。 地球七分之一的人口 一年中有時被截斷聯繫, 我們不能可靠地運送藥物, 他們不能拿到緊急物資, 不能以到市場賣東西 創造稳定的收入。 在撒哈拉南邊, 雨季裏百分之85的道路都是不可用的。 在現今階段 有人投資在道路上, 但估計需要50年 才能解決。 僅在美國,就有超過四百萬 英里的道路;建設非常昂貴, 維修也很貴, 非常不環保 可是,通常都是堵塞了的。
So we saw this and we thought, can there be a better way? Can we create a system using today's most advanced technologies that can allow this part of the world to leapfrog in the same way they've done with mobile telephones in the last 10 years? Many of those nations have excellent telecommunications today without ever putting copper lines in the ground. Could we do the same for transportation?
所以我們想, 有更好的辦法嗎? 利用現代科技,可否建立一個 能令這些人受惠的系統, 就像最近十年內 像手提電話一樣? 現今擁有最好的電訊的國家 通常都沒有埋銅線於地下。 我們能用同樣的方法來處理交通嗎?
Imagine this scenario. Imagine you are in a maternity ward in Mali, and have a newborn in need of urgent medication. What would you do today? Well, you would place a request via mobile phone, and someone would get the request immediately. That's the part that works. The medication may take days to arrive, though, because of bad roads. That's the part that's broken.
想像一下。 想像你在馬里(非洲國家)的產房, 需要緊急醫療。 你會做什麼? 你會打電話 然後有人會立即知道。 這部分沒問題。 然而藥物可能需要幾日才到達 因為很差的的交通因素。 這部分十分殘破。
We believe we can deliver it within hours with an electric autonomous flying vehicle such as this. This can transport a small payload today, about two kilograms, over a short distance, about 10 kilometers, but it's part of a wider network that may cover the entire country, maybe even the entire continent. It's an ultra-flexible, automated logistics network. It's a network for a transportation of matter. We call it Matternet.
我們相信,利用獨立飛航的工具 藥物幾小時就能被運到。 就像這樣。 這能與大概十公里範圍內運送 大概兩公斤的物資, 同時是一個龐大網絡的一部分, 大至整個國家,甚至整個大陸。 它是十分彈性,自動的物流網絡。 它是傳送物資的網絡。 我們叫他為「Matternet」。
We use three key technologies. The first is electric autonomous flying vehicles. The second is automated ground stations that the vehicles fly in and out of to swap batteries and fly farther, or pick up or deliver loads. And the third is the operating system that manages the whole network.
我們用三個主要的科技。 第一,電子飛航交通工具。 第二,自動化的地面車站, 那會容許飛航工具 換電池和飛更遠, 拿起和放下負載。 第三,管理整個網絡 的操作系統。
Let's look at each one of those technologies in a bit more detail. First of all, the UAVs. Eventually, we're going to be using all sorts of vehicles for different payload capacities and different ranges. Today, we're using small quads. These are able to transport two kilograms over 10 kilometers in just about 15 minutes. Compare this with trying to trespass a bad road in the developing world, or even being stuck in traffic in a developed world country. These fly autonomously. This is the key to the technology. So they use GPS and other sensors on board to navigate between ground stations. Every vehicle is equipped with an automatic payload and battery exchange mechanism, so these vehicles navigate to those ground stations, they dock, swap a battery automatically, and go out again. The ground stations are located on safe locations on the ground. They secure the most vulnerable part of the mission, which is the landing. They are at known locations on the ground, so the paths between them are also known, which is very important from a reliability perspective from the whole network. Apart from fulfilling the energy requirements of the vehicles, eventually they're going to be becoming commercial hubs where people can take out loads or put loads into the network. The last component is the operating system that manages the whole network. It monitors weather data from all the ground stations and optimizes the routes of the vehicles through the system to avoid adverse weather conditions, avoid other risk factors, and optimize the use of the resources throughout the network.
現在,我們詳細地看這些科技。 首先,無人機。 有朝一日,我們將根據不同的重量和距離 而使用不同的無人機。 今天,我們在用四方的小飛機。 這些能在15分鐘內 飛超過10公里運輸2公斤的物資。 比較在發展中國家 嘗試用車走過凹凸不平的道路, 甚至是在已發展國家 經常出現的交通擁塞。 這些能自動飛行。 這科技十分重要。 他們利用GPS和其他感應器 在地上車站導航。 每輛機器都裝上 有效載荷和換電池的機制, 這些無人機航行到這些車站, 停泊,換電池, 再次行駛。 這些車站是位於地上 安全的位置。 它們鞏固整個任務最脆弱的部分: 降落。 這些車站位於已知的地點, 因此它們中間的路線也是清楚的; 站在可信性的立場來說,對於整個網絡, 這是十分重要的。 除了滿足機器的能源需要, 它們最終都要成為 人們能在網絡中拿出物資 或放東西進去的商業樞紐。 最後的部分是管理整個網絡的 運作系統。 它掌控來自地下車站的天氣資料, 為機器尋找最佳的路線, 避免不利的天氣和 其他風險因素, 在網絡中最有效地 運用資源。
I want to show you what one of those flights looks like. Here we are flying in Haiti last summer, where we've done our first field trials. We're modeling here a medical delivery in a camp we set up after the 2010 earthquake. People there love this.
我想讓你們看一看 這些無人機的樣子。 這是去年夏天我們在海地的航行, 我們第一次的實地試驗。 那裏,我們在 2010 年海地大地震後興建了一個營, 現在模擬運送藥物。 當地的人非常喜歡。
And I want to show you what one of those vehicles looks like up close. So this is a $3,000 vehicle. Costs are coming down very rapidly. We use this in all sorts of weather conditions, very hot and very cold climates, very strong winds. They're very sturdy vehicles. Imagine if your life depended on this package, somewhere in Africa or in New York City, after Sandy. The next big question is, what's the cost?
我想讓你們看看 在近距離下這些飛機的樣子。 這是一輛價值 3000 元的飛機。 價錢將會很快下降。 我們在任何天氣環境下都能使用, 炎熱或寒冷, 強風。它們非常結實耐用。 想想你生命完全依賴這包裹。 非洲某處, 又或經過桑迪暴風吹襲的紐約。 第二個大問題是,價錢呢?
Well, it turns out that the cost to transport two kilograms over 10 kilometers with this vehicle is just 24 cents.
其實在超過十公里的距離 運送兩公斤的物件 價格僅僅是 24 美分。
(Applause)
(掌聲)
And it's counterintuitive, but the cost of energy expended for the flight is only two cents of a dollar today, and we're just at the beginning of this. When we saw this, we felt that this is something that can have significant impact in the world.
有違常理地,能源的價格 花費的只是整個旅程中的 2 美分而已; 而我們只是剛剛起步。 我們看到這事,我們認為這能對 世界帶來顯著的效果。
So we said, okay, how much does it cost to set up a network somewhere in the world? And we looked at setting up a network in Lesotho for transportation of HIV/AIDS samples. The problem there is how do you take them from clinics where they're being collected to hospitals where they're being analyzed? And we said, what if we wanted to cover an area spanning around 140 square kilometers? That's roughly one and a half times the size of Manhattan. Well it turns out that the cost to do that there would be less than a million dollars. Compare this to normal infrastructure investments. We think this can be -- this is the power of a new paradigm.
所以我們問:在世界任何一處建立 一個網絡要花多少? 所以我們查看了如何在萊索托(非洲南部內陸國家) 建立為搜集艾滋病毒樣本的交通系統。 當地的問題是:如何將樣品由 蒐集樣本的診所 運送到醫院做化驗? 另外,假如我們要覆蓋 超過 140 平方公里的範圍? 那是大概曼哈頓 1.5 倍的面積。 原來,要花費的 只少於 100萬美元。 將這價格和普通基建的價錢相比。 我們相信這是 新範例的能力。
So here we are: a new idea about a network for transportation that is based on the ideas of the Internet. It's decentralized, it's peer-to-peer, it's bidirectional, highly adaptable, with very low infrastructure investment, very low ecological footprint. If it is a new paradigm, though, there must be other uses for it. It can be used perhaps in other places in the world.
現在,我們從網絡上 衍生出對交通網絡 新的意念。 它並非統一,而是點對點, 雙向,極容易適應, 以及擁有很低的基建投資, 非常環保。 但假如這是新的範例, 它一定有其他用處。 可能在世界上其它地方都能用。
So let's look at the other end of the spectrum: our cities and megacities. Half of the Earth's population lives in cities today. Half a billion of us live in megacities. We are living through an amazing urbanization trend. China alone is adding a megacity the size of New York City every two years. These are places that do have road infrastructure, but it's very inefficient. Congestion is a huge problem. So we think it makes sense in those places to set up a network of transportation that is a new layer that sits between the road and the Internet, initially for lightweight, urgent stuff, and over time, we would hope to develop this into a new mode of transportation that is truly a modern solution to a very old problem. It's ultimately scalable with a very small ecological footprint, operating in the background 24/7, just like the Internet.
所以一起探索另一個角落。 我們的城市和巨型城市。 今天,一半的人住在城市。 超過五億人住在超大城市。 我們生活在都市化潮流的年代。 光是中國,每兩年就會 建設面積相當於紐約城市。 這些地方確實有道路基建, 然而非常沒效率。 交通堵塞是個很嚴重的問題。 因此我們認為在那裏 設立一個交通網絡有道理。 一個新的層次,坐落於道路 和網絡中間, 最初是為輕便,緊急的物資而設; 隨著時間,我們希望將它 發展成新模式的交通, 以現代的方法解決這古老的問題。 這方法能以 非常環保的方式擴展; 每時每刻都在背後運作, 就像互聯網一樣。
So when we started this a couple of years ago now, we've had a lot of people come up to us who said, "This is a very interesting but crazy idea, and certainly not something that you should engage with anytime soon." And of course, we're talking about drones, right, a technology that's not only unpopular in the West but one that has become a very, very unpleasant fact of life for many living in poor countries, especially those engaged in conflict.
因此在我們幾年前 開始研究這時, 很多人跟我們說:「 這是一個有趣然而瘋狂的想法, 你們不應該花時間 在這件事上。」 當然,我們是在談無人機, 一件不但在西方不普遍的科技, 同時對於窮困的人來說 一件令人討厭的玩意, 特別是處於衝突的人。
So why are we doing this? Well, we chose to do this one not because it's easy, but because it can have amazing impact. Imagine one billion people being connected to physical goods in the same way that mobile telecommunications connected them to information. Imagine if the next big network we built in the world was a network for the transportation of matter. In the developing world, we would hope to reach millions of people with better vaccines, reach them with better medication. It would give us an unfair advantage against battling HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other epidemics. Over time, we would hope it would become a new platform for economic transactions, lifting millions of people out of poverty. In the developed world and the emerging world, we would hope it would become a new mode of transportation that could help make our cities more livable.
那我們為什麼還要做呢? 我們並非因為 這件事很簡單, 卻是因為它能帶來驚人的影響。 想像十億人利用 像手機電信 聯繫資訊的方式 聯繫到物品。 想像我們世界之後建立的大網絡 是運送物質的。 在發展中國家,我們希望 讓眾多的人使用更好的疫苗, 運送更好的藥物。 這樣一來,我們在 對抗艾滋病毒,肺結核和流行病擁有極大的優勢。 隨著時間推移,我們希望它會成為 經濟交易的新平台, 帶領千千萬萬的人脫貧。 無論是已發展和發展中的地方, 我們都希望這能成為 新的交通模式,因而令我們的生活 更適合居住。
So for those that still believe that this is science fiction, I firmly say to you that it is not. We do need to engage, though, in social fiction to make it happen.
對於那些仍然認為這是科學小說的人, 我強烈地像你們說:不是。 我們卻要參與, 與社會小說中,去令這發生。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)