(Report Producer/Author: Great Wall Securities, Hou Bin, Yao Jiuhua)
Technological innovation + policy guidance to promote low-altitude industries to bring new economic growth
Definition of low-altitude economy
Low-altitude airspace usually refers to the airspace within 1,000 meters from the vertical distance of the ground plane directly below, and can be extended to less than 3,000 meters according to the characteristics and actual needs of different regions.
As a strategic emerging industry, the low-altitude economy has high scientific and technological content, concentrated innovation elements, and has the characteristics of long industrial chain, complex application scenarios, multiple use subjects, and many departments and fields involved, including the traditional general aviation format, and the integration of low-altitude production services supported by UAVs, through information, digital management technology empowerment, and more economic and social activities are integrated, forming a comprehensive economic form that accommodates and promotes the coordinated development of multiple fields with great vitality and creativity.
The low-altitude economy includes both traditional fields such as general aviation, police and military, as well as emerging application scenarios such as urban air transportation (UAM), which mainly uses electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL). General aviation is the main industry of the low-altitude economy, the UAV industry will be the leading industry of the low-altitude economy in the future, the combination of the two urban air mobility UAM is the development hotspot, eVTOL is the mainstream form of UAM.
Composition of low-altitude economic industries
The low-altitude economy is gradually combined with multiple application scenarios in the form of "aviation +", and the core is the "combined" economic form of aircraft and various industries, such as "aviation + agriculture and forestry", "aviation + sports", "aviation + electricity", "aviation + public security", etc.
According to the classification of Shenzhen Bao'an District Low-altitude Unmanned System Association, the low-altitude economy as a complex mainly includes four major sectors: low-altitude aircraft manufacturing (aircraft manufacturing), low-altitude flight, low-altitude support, and low-altitude comprehensive services. Low-altitude manufacturing includes spacecraft, drones and corresponding components; Low-altitude flight includes various low-altitude flight activities such as production operations, public services, and aviation consumption; Low-altitude support provides a series of safeguard measures including infrastructure construction and low-altitude airspace control; Integrated services are ground services that support the development of low-altitude economy.
Multi-scenario application in low-altitude economic industry to open up new impetus for commercial development
In recent years, the digital economy has gradually become the pillar of global economic development, and the low-altitude economy, as an emerging development direction, will also integrate and develop with the digital economy, combining cloud computing, 5G, AI and other technologies to provide impetus for the digital development of the low-altitude economy industry. The low-altitude economy relies on the low-altitude network and takes the unmanned aircraft (UAV) industry as the core to build an economic system covering urban management, express logistics, geographic surveying and mapping, agriculture, forestry plant protection, emergency rescue and other fields.
In commercial application scenarios, the new general aviation industry represented by eVTOL, drones and urban air mobility (UAM) is also the key direction of the low-altitude economic industry. The concept of "low-altitude economy +" will be combined with life scenarios such as tourism, logistics, fire protection, inspection, and agriculture to drive the continuous development of the social aviation service flight activity market.
Policy side - national policies are promoted by various parties to boost the confidence of the development of low-altitude economic industries
Since 2009, the State Council, the Civil Aviation Administration and other departments have issued a number of policies and plans related to low-altitude economic industries such as low-altitude airspace, general aviation industry, and unmanned aerial vehicles, and will write low-altitude economy into the government work report for the first time in 2024. At the press conference of the Information Office of the State Council on April 17, Jin Xiandong, director of the Policy Research Office of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that the low-altitude economy, as a strategic emerging industry with great development potential, can not only drive scientific and technological innovation, but also be a typical representative of new quality productivity, and has a far-reaching impact on the high-quality economic and social development of the mainland. Actively and steadily promoting the development of the low-altitude economy not only conforms to the requirements of the innovation-driven development strategy, but also opens up new growth poles for the mainland economy, and its future development is of great significance and has bright prospects.
The development of eVTOL and drones in multiple scenarios, and the integration of industries leads the development of new outlets
Definition of eVTOL
eVTOL即Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing，电动垂直起降（载人）飞行器。 VTOL的概念自二战中直升机技术的 成熟而逐渐得到关注，二战后一度有电动化改装直升机的广泛讨论和尝试。 现代eVTOL概念兴起源于2009年，NASA发 布了Mark Moore的博士论文《NASA海鹦电动尾坐式VTOL飞机概念》(NASA Puffin Electric Tailsitter VTOL Concept)Puffin。 Mark Moore提出的电动驱动的高可靠性和效率、低发动机重量和维护、低冷却阻力和体积要求、非 常低的噪音和振动水平，以及零排放等现代eVTOL设计理念得到了广泛传播。
The eVTOL is fully electric like the pure electric vehicle, and can complete vertical take-off and landing maneuvers without the need for a runway. At the same time, it can also carry people, and can carry up to 4-5 passengers at the same time to complete a short flight of 300 kilometers at a speed of more than 400 kilometers per hour. It is inspired by VTOL, a vertical take-off and landing technology for military fixed-wing aircraft. Later, the concept of eVTOL was proposed in the field of transportation electrification, with a focus on technology substitution in the powertrain. eVTOLs will also revolutionize the future of urban air transport (UAM).
The history of eVTOL
European and American countries proposed the concept of eVTOL earlier, and the real emergence of the concept of eVTOL came from the CG animation video about Puffin eVTOL released by NASA in 2009. Subsequently, pioneering companies such as Joby began to establish and work on the research and development of eVTOL technology. In 2014, the American Helicopters International Association and the Aeronautics and Astronautics Association officially introduced the eVTOL concept, further promoting its global recognition. In 2016, UBER released a white paper on eVTOL and began to accelerate the development of the industry.
Compared with overseas, the development of the eVTOL field in mainland China started late, and EHang was listed in 2019, but the domestic aircraft and aircraft industry has not yet shown signs of accelerated development. In recent years, the mainland government has attached great importance to the development of the eVTOL industry, and has issued relevant policies to plan its future development, and encouraged enterprises to strengthen technology research and development and commercial operations. At the same time, the mainland is also building relevant industrial ecology and infrastructure to support the development of the eVTOL industry and continuously improve the low-altitude flight management system.
The market share of drones is low, and the low-altitude economy may drive long-term growth
The application scenarios of low-altitude economy include not only the traditional general aviation format, but also the low-altitude production and service mode supported by drones. It is widely used in industry, agriculture, service industry and other fields, including low-altitude express logistics, tourism, emergency rescue, urban management, aviation sports and other scenarios. Wei Yachuan, deputy general manager of Feipeng in the aerospace era, said that UAVs are an important part of the strategic emerging industries of the low-altitude economy, which has been closely followed by local governments and UAV operators.
According to the data of the China Business Industry Research Institute, in 2022, the revenue of China's low-altitude economic industry will account for 80%+ of the revenue from aircraft manufacturing business, followed by flight business and support business; The UAV business accounts for only 16% of the low-altitude economic industry, and the proportion of manned aircraft is still large. In the future, with the development of low-altitude economic industry, the UAV industry may continue to increase its share.
New outlets for application scenarios such as agriculture, logistics, and security have driven the stable development of the drone industry
From the perspective of the maturity and market space of civil UAV applications in major industries, the market development trend has gradually shifted from the demand of entertainment consumption to agriculture and forestry plant protection, surveying and mapping and geographic information, urban logistics, emergency management and other markets, and the products are relatively mature and will maintain stable growth in the future. According to Grand View Research, Technavio and other data, it is expected that by 2030, the global UAV application market will be the largest in the three major scenarios of geographic surveying and mapping, energy management, and energy inspection, with a market size of 375/330/30 billion US dollars respectively; The agricultural market size is about $22.5 billion, and the logistics market is about $15 billion.
With the acceleration of China's smart city construction process, in urban management, transportation, energy and other scenarios, drone security, inspection, rescue, unattended and other applications will become an important growth pole; The express logistics market has huge potential, but it is still in the small-scale commercial use of specific scenarios, and the future market potential is expected to achieve rapid growth after breaking through the bottlenecks of technology, commercial mode, and safety.
Synaesthesia integration - to create a low-altitude network communication and perception fusion architecture
Synaesthesia integrates to create three-dimensional coverage of low-altitude cyberspace
UAV flight activities in low-altitude areas, regulatory activities need the support of network facilities in the field, radar, camera, tracking technology, etc. are higher than the accuracy and range of conventional aircraft. The continuous development of the low-altitude industry will produce large-density, high-frequency, and multi-type low-altitude flight activities, and the current single-station monitoring mode based on traditional radar technology has limited capabilities, and it is difficult to find "low, slow, and small" targets; At the same time, the large-scale low-altitude flight activity monitoring demand is high, and the current camera monitoring technology can monitor the limited range, and the requirements for light and distance are higher.
The traditional wireless network takes the ground as the main target, and the low-altitude information network needs to carry out spatial three-dimensional coverage. At the same time, with the development of the low-altitude economy, there is a trend of combining with digitalization and informatization, and hardware, software, communication links and other aspects require multi-party cooperation, so higher requirements are put forward for the wide-area continuous coverage of low-altitude networks, and the foundation for the high-quality development of the low-altitude economic industry is created.
Relying on cellular mobile communication networks, Internet of Things, cloud computing and other infrastructure, the low-altitude network forms an intelligent interconnected low-altitude digital service system integrating communication, perception and computing, and aims to achieve "ubiquitous connection, global perception and intelligent computing" to open up a comprehensive management plan from life activities, business activities to regulatory activities.
The synaesthesia waveform has been developed and upgraded, and the integrated architecture of communication and perception has been continuously improved
In the process of constructing synaesthesia, the scattering characteristics of sensing targets, sensing targets of different application scenarios, targets of different sizes, and perception at different distances need to consider the requirements of the actual scene and the degree of simulation to achieve the perception effect in the real situation.
According to China Telecom's 2024 Synaesthesia Integrated Low-altitude Network White Paper, the design of synaesthesia waveforms needs to consider both communication performance and perception performance, and appropriate waveform design can improve the accuracy of perception and communication efficiency. A simple synaesthesia waveform transmission method is to adopt time division, frequency division, space division and other methods to realize the diversity transmission of communication and perception waveforms. However, this approach is less efficient in the use of resources. To improve resource utilization, communication and sensing functions can be integrated into the same waveform.
In addition, communication-sensing integration requires a redesign of the existing communication frame structure. At present, the configuration of the New Radio (NR) frame structure mainly considers the requirements of information transmission, including three transmission modes: uplink transmission, downlink transmission and flexible transmission. However, with the development of communication and sensing integration technology and the continuous emergence of new services, perception capability will gradually become an endogenous capability of mobile communication systems. Therefore, the design of the new synaesthesia integrated frame structure needs to comprehensively consider the requirements of communication performance and sensing performance, especially the characteristics of sensing frequency bands, sensing service scenarios, sensing accuracy, timeliness, interference, and equipment capabilities.
The mainland's low-altitude economic market has a vast space and is expected to become a new driving force for economic growth
From the perspective of the overall market size, CCID released the "Research Report on China's Low-altitude Economic Development (2024)" on April 1, 2024, according to CCID's calculations, the scale of China's low-altitude economy will reach 505.95 billion yuan in 2023, with a growth rate of 33.8%. In 2023, in the scale of low-altitude economy, low-altitude aircraft manufacturing and low-altitude operation services occupy a prominent position, with a contribution of nearly 55%, becoming an important engine to promote the development of low-altitude economy. At the same time, the contribution of economic activities such as supply chains, production services, consumption, and transportation is also extremely impressive, reaching nearly 40%. The development potential of low-altitude infrastructure and flight support has not yet been fully unleashed. With the increasing frequency of low-altitude flight activities, the investment pull effect of low-altitude infrastructure is gradually emerging. According to CCID's optimistic forecast, by 2026, the scale of the low-altitude economy is expected to achieve a major breakthrough of 1,064.46 billion yuan, becoming a new driving force for economic growth.
Excerpts from the report:
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Selected report source: [Future Think Tank]. Future Think Tank - Official Website