Low altitude economy accelerates commercialization in multiple scenarios

Since the beginning of this year, the low altitude economy, which has nurtured a trillion dollar market, has continued to be hot, showing strong development momentum in multiple fields such as low altitude logistics distribution and low altitude manned flight. Various provinces and cities have launched a series of measures to compete in the low altitude logistics track, and a group of "seed players" enterprises have emerged.

Low altitude manned flight is widely favored

The low altitude economy is showing great development potential in multiple fields such as logistics, emergency rescue, medical care, agriculture, and inspection. Concepts such as industrial grade drones, aviation grade drones, electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs), split type flying vehicles, and coaxial unmanned helicopters are emerging at various levels. Taking the field of drones as an example, according to data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, there were approximately 608000 newly registered drones in the first half of this year, an increase of 48% compared to the end of last year; Drones have flown a total of 9.816 million hours, an increase of 134000 hours compared to the same period last year.

At the same time, low altitude manned flight scenes have appeared one after another, attracting public attention. On June 28th, the Chengdu Business Jet Base located at Shuangliu International Airport was officially put into use. "Passengers taking business jets arrive at Shuangliu International Airport, and upon disembarking, they can transfer to low altitude aircraft to quickly reach the business district of the central urban area and surrounding scenic spots," said Liu Chang, Vice Chairman of Hualong Airlines and Chairman of the Asian Business Aviation Association.

Why is low altitude manned flight widely favored? At Sichuan Wofei

Changkong Technology Development Co., Ltd., the reporter saw the "future scenario" of low altitude manned flight. Guo Liang, CEO and Chief Scientist of Wofei Changkong, introduced that unlike traditional helicopters, eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft) retains the function of helicopter vertical takeoff and landing, but is fully powered by electricity, lighter in size, quieter, and has lower overall cost. Our fully self-developed manned eVTOL aircraft aims to achieve universal mobility in the future Under the trend, China has already produced a group of eVTOL "seed players" enterprises, such as Yihang Intelligence, Fengfei Technology, Wofei Changkong, Wolante, etc. Liu Yong, founder and CEO of DeOp, who provides a one-stop supply chain solution for eVTOL, analyzed that compared to the development stage before the low altitude economy, the biggest variable currently lies in eVTOL. "The low altitude economy centered on eVTOL aircraft manufacturing will become a trillion yuan scale industry comparable to the automotive industry, and is expected to reach a market size of 3 trillion to 5 trillion yuan by 2035

It is reported that Wofei Changkong will adopt a "step-by-step" operation strategy in the future. In the first stage, traditional helicopters will be used to explore and operate low altitude travel scenarios such as urban business connections and air shuttle services between scenic spots, opening up low altitude air routes in cities; In the second stage, a joint operation of helicopters and eVTOL will be adopted to conduct trial runs in various scenarios of intercity low altitude travel; In the third stage, eVTOL products will be used for large-scale operation of various urban low altitude scenarios.

Low altitude logistics accelerates large-scale commercial use

Logistics transportation and distribution are also important application scenarios for the development of low altitude economy, and are considered key to the current industry growth. The "Implementation Plan for Innovative Application of General Aviation Equipment (2024-2030)" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments clarifies the development goals by 2027, proposing "achieving commercial operation" for urban air traffic and "achieving large-scale application" for logistics distribution.

In this field, China's drone technology is relatively mature, especially with many mature industrial grade products for micro, light and small drones, providing strong support for the development of low altitude economy in the short term.

In the low altitude economy, drone logistics will take the lead in large-scale commercial use. "The person in charge of Fengyi Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. told reporters that as of now, Fengyi Technology has opened more than 500 routes nationwide, flown over 1 million flights, and transported more than 4 million goods. Fengyi drones have achieved normalized and large-scale operation in all scenarios such as express delivery, emergency rescue, medical transportation, and fresh food cold chain.

In addition, the cross provincial low altitude logistics model of "trunk support terminal" connecting general aviation's manned and unmanned aerial vehicles has also been implemented. In June of this year, a Kodiak100 fixed wing general aviation aircraft with a large brown bear took off from Longdongbao International Airport in Guiyang and landed at Huaizhou Airport in Chengdu more than 2 hours later. The goods carried on the aircraft were then "boarded" on the Fengyi Ark 40 drone and transported by air to Koma Town, Jintang County. It is reported that the entire process has reduced the transit time of cross provincial logistics transportation by 8 hours and improved service delivery efficiency by 20%.

In busy areas and time periods, low altitude logistics can also supplement the demand for delivery scenarios. Meituan introduced that the company has developed a "low altitude economy+logistics" scenario, opened distribution routes in cities such as Shenzhen and Shanghai, provided drone delivery services for communities, office buildings, scenic spots, hospitals, campuses, etc., and built a drone remote operation management center and drone intelligent manufacturing center in Shenzhen, forming a complete commercial closed loop.

The industry generally believes that logistics is currently one of the most widely used application scenarios for low altitude economy landing. From the perspective of Shenzhen alone, in the first half of this year, the number of low altitude cargo drone flights in Shenzhen was about 255000, a year-on-year increase of 38%. According to the Shenzhen Drone Industry Association, the demand for drones from SF Express, JD.com, and Meituan is expected to reach one million by 2040. By 2024, the market size of drone delivery in domestic express logistics will reach about 30 billion yuan.

Comprehensive measures to safeguard low altitude economy

Analysts believe that the low altitude economy is still in its infancy, with many bottlenecks and challenges such as incomplete top-level design, weak industrial foundation, and immature market. The key is to seize the core links of top-level design, technical support, application expansion, and airspace management, and comprehensively implement policies from the three levels of policy, industry, and technology to create a good environment and open up a good path for the development of the low altitude economy.

The key to the development of low altitude economy is to 'fly up'. Chen Guohua, secretary-general of the Chinese Association of Aircraft Owners and Pilots, said that the main problem restricting large-scale application at present is the safety and efficiency problems brought about by large-scale operation of new aircraft, including ground safety and air safety problems, airspace management problems, etc.

For example, with the increasing number of low altitude flights, how to allocate low altitude airspace resources is an important issue. At the same time, it cannot be ignored that the construction of low altitude economic infrastructure such as takeoff and landing sites, communication, navigation, surveillance, and meteorology is not yet perfect, and operating enterprises have also invested heavily in infrastructure construction.

From the current perspective, many local governments have achieved certain results by opening up application scenarios and encouraging application demonstrations. However, some scenarios still require government subsidies and have not yet formed large-scale commercial sustainable and replicable application scenarios, "said Tian Manlin, General Manager of China Electronics Technology Wuhu Diamond Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Experts suggest that we should continue to implement policies, improve laws and regulations, and strengthen the acceptance of technical standards. At the level of infrastructure standards, Hu Yingdong, Director of the Aviation Standardization UAV Room at the China Aviation Institute of Integrated Technology, suggested that the focus should be on promoting the development of standards for physical infrastructure (low altitude takeoff and landing stations, energy stations, maintenance facilities, etc.), information infrastructure (communication, navigation, monitoring facilities, etc.), route infrastructure (low altitude digital airspace maps, 3D maps, etc.), and service infrastructure (low altitude flight service systems, low altitude flight control systems, etc.).

At the same time, experts suggest accelerating the revision and improvement of laws and regulations related to low altitude flight, drone applications, airspace management, etc., clarifying the boundaries of rights and responsibilities, regulating market order, reasonably dividing and dynamically managing low altitude airspace, and improving the efficiency of airspace resource utilization. In addition, we should attach great importance to the key role of technological innovation in enterprise development, cultivate a group of low altitude economy leading enterprises with international competitiveness, give full play to their leading role in technological innovation and market development, and encourage increased investment in research and development of key core technologies, such as breakthroughs in unmanned aerial vehicle autonomous navigation, intelligent obstacle avoidance, long endurance and other technologies.