Low-flying aircraft on live exhibit. Photo courtesy of Yunnan Provincial Investment Promotion Bureau
Drone display. Photo by reporter Zhang Yi
Editor: Zhao Yunping/Cartography
Drone display. Photo by reporter Zhang Yi
On June 28, the Investment Yunnan Low-altitude Industry Development Conference and the 2024 World Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Conference (UAV) Yunnan Branch were held in Kunming, where enterprises and experts in the field of low-altitude economy gathered to explore low-altitude economic application scenarios and discuss the development direction of low-altitude industry. On the same day, the official website of the municipal government released the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Development of Low-altitude Economy in Kunming" to seize the strategic opportunity of the new track of low-altitude economy, promote the high-quality development of low-altitude economic industrial clusters, cultivate and expand new momentum for Kunming's economic development, and accelerate the formation of new quality productivity.
The low-altitude economy refers to the comprehensive industrial chain related to all flights, manufacturing, maintenance (support) and services based on low-altitude UAVs and manned aircraft, with the characteristics of innovation-led, green and low-carbon, and digital-real integration. Relevant data show that the scale of the mainland's low-altitude economy will exceed 500 billion yuan in 2023 and is expected to reach 1.5 trillion yuan in 2025. Taking advantage of the trend, this year, Kunming initially set up a special class for low-altitude economic work, and successively went to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hefei and other places to investigate, investigate enterprises on the spot, and discuss and exchange with experts and think tanks.
The advantages are highlighted, and the low-altitude economy is promising
According to the person in charge of the relevant departments of Kunming City, Kunming has great prospects for the development of low-altitude economy. From the perspective of advantageous conditions, Kunming's mountainous area accounts for more than 80%, especially in the northern region, the mountains are high and the roads are long, the ravines are vertical and horizontal, and the traffic access conditions are poor, and the low-altitude traffic and low-altitude logistics have the advantages of fast passage and low cost. Taking the transportation of 50 kilograms of fertilizer from Zhongping Town, Luquan County to a village in Pudu Valley as an example, road transportation takes 2.5 hours and costs 20 yuan, while it only takes 30 minutes and costs 30 yuan if it is transported by drone, which greatly improves efficiency. At the same time, Kunming has long sunshine, short frost period, moderate humidity, low cloud cover and wide vision at low altitude, which provides good meteorological conditions for low-altitude flight.
From its own foundation, in 2017, Kunming was included in the first batch of general aviation industry comprehensive demonstration zones in the country, encouraging the development of general aviation manufacturing, general aviation flight, education and training, emergency rescue and other industries. At present, Kunming's new energy battery and new material industries are accelerating their rise, which has the advantage of raw materials for the manufacture of flying aircraft, and can provide supporting support for the low-altitude manufacturing industry; The charging infrastructure network has achieved full coverage, which can provide sufficient energy guarantee for the charging and distribution of low-altitude aircraft.
To develop the low-altitude economy, Kunming has a pilot park. At the beginning of 2022, Kunming Urban Investment Co., Ltd. launched the construction of Kunming Low-altitude Economic Industrial Park in Taiping Village, Panlong District, and has been approved 8 pilot routes for UAV logistics and 2 pilot routes for inspection, carrying out UAV inspection, logistics and distribution, research and training, drone performances and other businesses, and signing cooperation agreements with enterprises such as Sunrise Blue Sky and Xun Ant Technology, to build a UAV industry system integrating UAV parts, complete machine R&D and manufacturing, testing experiments, industry applications, and service guarantees.
With the support of various advantageous conditions, a number of low-altitude economic manufacturing enterprises have grown vigorously in Kunming. Yunnan Junying Aviation Technology Co., Ltd. has long-term cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University Research Institute and other units to develop UAVs, with more than 20 technical patents, the development of UAVs covering agricultural plant protection, power inspection and many other fields. The high-prototype UAV engine developed by Yunnan Youhang UAV Technology Co., Ltd. has a fuel conversion rate of 40% and a service life of more than 1,000 hours, reaching the international advanced level. Yunnan Anquan Xiaofang New Material Co., Ltd. solves the problem that ordinary UAVs cannot work at high temperatures by spraying high-temperature heat-insulating ceramic composite materials independently developed on the surface of UAVs, with a fire-resistant temperature of up to 1000 °C and a fire-resistant time of 15 minutes to 60 minutes, which is widely used in the field of fire-fighting UAVs. Kunming Yunying Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. provides patrol, verification, monitoring and other services in 28 scenarios such as emergency, water affairs, urban management, fire rescue, and public security, and creates a typical case of drone + government service in the country.
Take advantage of the momentum and anchor the target of 30 billion yuan
13 cooperation projects were signed at the conference, some of which landed in Kunming. For example, Kunming Urban Construction Investment and Development Co., Ltd. and Guangdong Nengfei Aviation Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd. have cooperated to carry out strategic cooperation projects in the UAV industry, jointly build a characteristic UAV industrial base, a UAV public service management and control platform and a UAV training institution, and develop UAV application markets such as logistics, forestry and agriculture. The Kunming Municipal People's Government and Jiangsu Digital Eagle Technology Co., Ltd. have carried out a strategic cooperation project on the comprehensive management of UAV cities, and built a digital eagle southwest regional headquarters, R&D center, marketing center, training center, operation center, data center, data service platform, and standard factory building in Kunming to create a new highland for the regional UAV industry.
In addition to attracting enterprises and developing application scenarios, in recent years, Kunming has also made efforts to promote the development of low-altitude economy from the aspects of system establishment, policy formulation and enterprise support. According to the plan, the city will accelerate the construction of the "1520" low-altitude economic development system. That is, to establish a set of work promotion mechanism, focusing on the five major areas of "planning and layout, facility construction, service platform, application scenarios, and industrial agglomeration", coordinate and promote 20 key tasks, and strive to build a low-altitude economic development pattern driven by systematic promotion, diversified participation, and characteristics, and strive to build a national low-altitude economic demonstration zone, and cultivate the low-altitude economy into a new economic growth point in Kunming.
In terms of policy support, it is planned to introduce support measures around the construction of low-altitude economic infrastructure, the implementation of industrial projects, and the expansion of application scenarios, and give necessary preferential policies such as finance, land and access to low-altitude economy-related enterprises. Fully implement preferential tax policies, increase credit support, and encourage counties (cities) and districts to formulate supporting policies to promote low-altitude economic development. Combined with the application characteristics of UAV scenarios in Kunming, it focuses on attracting investment from low-altitude flight manufacturing enterprises that have advantages in agriculture and forestry plant protection, fire rescue, and aviation logistics, and develops in dislocation with the head enterprises with large market share and obvious technical advantages in the country. Give full play to the advantages of Kunming's new energy battery and aluminum, titanium alloy and rubber new material industry foundation, and rely on Anning City and Economic Development Zone to attract battery, parts processing and complete machine assembly enterprises to settle in Kunming.
"Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Development of Low-altitude Economy in Kunming" proposes that the city's low-altitude economic scale will reach 30 billion yuan in three years, cultivate more than 500 market entities in the low-altitude economic industry chain, cultivate more than 5 specialized, special and new small and medium-sized enterprises, carry out more than 50 pilot projects of "low-altitude +" application scenarios, and introduce at least 5 representative enterprises in the industry. Focus on building three low-altitude economic pilot areas in Central Yunnan New Area, Panlong District, and Chenggong District, carry out the pilot construction of "smart border defense" UAVs in Mohan, and form an agglomeration industrial ecosystem in data integration and sharing, intelligent and efficient management and control, and system and mechanism support, so as to effectively connect the functions of infrastructure use, flight application response, and flight process supervision to ensure low-altitude traffic safety. Reporter Zhang Yi and Ran Guangwen report
point of view
Yunnan provides new application scenarios for the national drone industry
Yang Jincai, academician of the French Academy of European Sciences, chairman of the World UAV Conference, and president of the Shenzhen UAV Industry Association, made a special report on the development of China's low-altitude economy and industry at the conference. He introduced that with the innovation of application scenarios and service methods, civilian UAVs have blossomed in the past 20 years, and more than one million economic entities have participated in them, continuously improving economic vitality. In the past three years, the growth rate of the output value of civil UAVs in the country has reached 34%, and the economic benefits of 5 yuan have been driven by the productivity of 1 yuan.
At present, 29 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country will write the low-altitude economy into the 2024 government work report, and more than 21 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country have successively issued relevant policies and action plans around the low-altitude economy, and Yunnan Province has also successively issued the "Yunnan Province Advanced Equipment Manufacturing Industry Development Plan (2021-2025)" and "Yunnan Province UAV Industry Development Three-Year Action Plan (2023-2025)" to provide policy support for the development of the province's advanced manufacturing industry and UAV industry.
Yang Jincai believes that Yunnan Province is rich in resources, high mountains and deep valleys, 94% of the land is mountainous, and the unique topography and landform with an altitude of 60 meters to 6,000 meters have natural advantages in the development of low-altitude economy. The development of eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft) does not require a runway, has low comprehensive cost and low threshold for use, and vigorously develops eVTOL to solve many travel and material transportation problems, which provides a solid foundation for Yunnan to develop "low-altitude economy + cultural tourism" and create a new tourism hotspot. At the same time, Yunnan is adjacent to South Asia and Southeast Asia, and is an important link between South Asia and Southeast Asia, and cargo transportation and logistics express delivery will be Yunnan's future development strengths, providing another new scene for the national UAV industry.
Yang Jincai said that on the basis of standards first, strengthening infrastructure construction is the key work, to strengthen the construction of communication networks and aviation big data platforms, to ensure that the transmission between low-altitude aircraft such as UAVs and ground control systems is unimpeded, and to establish and improve an effective intelligent supervision system to support the digital needs of the low-altitude economy and ensure reliable and safe flight. Promoting digital services for the low-altitude economy is also a key point, focusing on building a digital service platform to provide one-stop low-altitude flight services for manned and unmanned aircraft in the low-altitude economy. "With the application scenario, the next step is to build an industrial park to promote the development of low-altitude economy-related industrial clusters and form a complete industrial chain. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen industry-university-research cooperation, promote the application of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data in the field of low-altitude economy, establish a unified urban data platform, and realize data sharing between low-altitude economy and other areas of the city. Yang Jincai said (reporter Ran Guangwen)
Promote the upstream and downstream development of the industrial chain with "low-altitude + cultural tourism".
Chen Yan, chief strategy officer of Zero Gravity Aircraft Industry (Hefei) Co., Ltd., said that the future application scenarios and development and operation prospects of Yunnan's low-altitude economy are broad, such as public services such as urban and rural public governance, and productive services such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery operations. He attaches the most importance to Yunnan's life service scene, especially in the field of "low-altitude + cultural tourism".
Chen Yan said that Yunnan is an ideal tourist destination, and as a manufacturer of low-altitude equipment, Zero Gravity is planning to join hands with partners to create a "low-altitude + cultural tourism" application scenario ecosystem in Yunnan. Starting from this, it will develop to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and drive the comprehensive development of a variety of business formats. For example, the equipment and take-off and landing facilities invested in the "low-altitude + cultural tourism" application scenario can be used for emergency rescue, flight training, functional operations, etc. After the scene is built, a variety of business formats can be gathered in an aviation flight camp to provide comprehensive service products such as life and production.
Next, Zero Gravity plans to build an aviation park project in Kunming, build a new runway, introduce electric new energy aircraft to carry out comprehensive operations, and gradually introduce aviation research, camping and other surrounding formats. Through the aviation park, it will drive the derivative market formats such as financial leasing and aircraft hosting services. "Although there are still weak links in the development of Yunnan's aviation manufacturing industry, with the gradual expansion of the operation service market, it will force manufacturing enterprises to emerge and bring about the agglomeration effect of business formats." Chen Yan said.
According to the agreement, the above-mentioned project will purchase electric new energy aircraft produced by zero gravity, plan to purchase about 500 eVTOLs for the Yunnan cultural tourism market, and purchase 100 electric fixed-wing aircraft, which can not only carry out low-altitude flight experience, but also carry out aviation sports. In addition, relying on the advantages of low noise and zero emission of electric new energy aircraft, it will help the green development of low-altitude economy. Reporter Zhang Yi reported
enterprise
Sunrise Blue Sky plans to open up the UAV application market in multiple fields
At the conference, Sunrise Blue Sky (Yunnan) Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Sunrise Bluesky") showcased two latest drone equipment. Since its establishment, the company has continuously expanded its business based on Yunnan's location, resources and other advantages, and plans to create a number of low-altitude economic demonstration application scenarios.
Among the two products displayed by the company, the Mercury X110 multi-functional large-load UAV is composed of carbon fiber and aluminum alloy composite materials, adopts modular design, and can be assembled in only 3 minutes, with simple and convenient operation, strong industry applicability, and has the characteristics of flight duration and flight stability in products of the same level, and has the characteristics of large load, strong wind resistance and high precision, with a maximum load of up to 50 kg. In emergency rescue, the model can be equipped with two 25-kilogram forest fire extinguishing bombs, which helps to improve the efficiency and reliability of emergency rescue; In logistics and transportation, it can further improve the transportation timeliness and solve the "last mile" delivery timeliness problem. It is suitable for emergency rescue, forest firefighting, material transportation, intra-city distribution, etc.
The X480 multi-rotor transport drone flies fast, fully electric, has low noise, low flight cost, safety and stability. The model can carry out transportation, material distribution, operation, hoisting and other businesses, can plan the height and path, the maximum load of 200 kg, and the UAV can achieve guided flight and avoid forbidden areas. Large load and long endurance, it has more advantages in the transportation of materials in complex terrains such as mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes.
Sunrise Blue Sky is committed to the research and development, production, sales and service of drones, drone industry, drone pilot training, emergency training and other products. In order to continuously improve the level of innovation, the company maintains in-depth cooperation with universities and scientific research institutes, and has researched and developed a series of integrated UAV solutions suitable for military, police, civilian, etc. According to the relevant person in charge of the company, relying on its own R&D center, the company not only realizes the independent innovation and development of all models, but also ensures the after-sales "one-to-one" technical support and service. The company's self-developed Nebulas UAV management and control platform realizes real-time monitoring and supervision of UAVs, and hierarchical management and allocation of user rights. The system controls the drone through the cloud, which is no longer limited by the wireless signal transmission distance, and maintains the full supervision of the flight status, so as to achieve comprehensive control anytime and anywhere.
Since landing in Kunming in 2023, Sunrise Blue Sky has signed cooperation agreements with Lushui, Honghe and other places, focusing on rural logistics and extending low-altitude application scenarios in other fields such as smart cultural tourism. In the future, the company will focus on cultivating and improving the UAV industry chain in Kunming, build a characteristic UAV industry base, UAV training institutions, etc., and develop UAV application markets such as logistics, cultural tourism, forestry, agriculture, fire protection, and emergency response. (Reporter Zhang Yi, Ran Guangwen)
Short comment
Grasp the tuyere and plan the development of low-altitude industries in the long run
From agricultural plant protection to power inspection, from logistics and distribution to tourism, from environmental monitoring to emergency rescue, the low-altitude economy empowers thousands of industries and continuously gives birth to new business formats. Looking at the whole country, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Anhui and other provinces have already made forward-looking layouts and seized the new track of low-altitude economy.
The 2024 Yunnan Provincial Government Work Report proposes to accelerate the construction of a modern industrial system, lay out and develop future industries such as low-altitude economy, and form new quality productivity. It is time for Yunnan to plan a low-altitude industry. Yunnan aviation province in the location of transportation, infrastructure, industrial base, talent team and other aspects of the development of low-altitude economy has an excellent advantage, has initially had a low-altitude economic ecosystem, industrial chain development foundation, in the upstream, Yunnan germanium industry as the representative of the chip production leading enterprises and to German nano, EVE lithium energy, CATL, Shanshan technology and other representatives of the new energy battery chain main enterprises can provide key components and other support; In the midstream, the high-performance two-seat fully composite light aircraft DL-2L independently developed by Maitreya Haoxiang Technology is the first light aircraft in southwest China with independent intellectual property rights and successfully obtained certification. In the downstream, the integrated development of "low-altitude economy +" agriculture, culture and tourism, logistics and other industries has broad prospects in building and enriching application scenarios.
The future industry determines the future of the industry, and the low-altitude economy contains infinite possibilities, which has a broad space in stimulating effective investment, creating consumer demand, and improving the level of innovation. At the same time, it should also be noted that the low-altitude economy has just "taken off" in Yunnan, and how to fly steadily and far requires the joint efforts of the government, enterprises, and all sectors of society. A number of industry insiders mentioned that only by focusing on the construction of application scenarios and realizing the economy of scenarios can the allocation of factors and improve the low-altitude economic development mechanism can the advantages of Yunnan's development of low-altitude economy be highlighted. It is necessary to refine layer by layer in terms of improving the top-level design, building a collaborative mechanism for application scenarios, accelerating the improvement of the support system, exploring the low-altitude economic business model, and realizing the path of scene economy. (Ran Guangwen, Zhang Yi)