[Global Times reporter Ma Jun]The editor says:As a national strategic emerging industry, the "14th Five-Year Year" period, China's low-air economy showed strong innovation and international competitiveness. Related products mainly include drones, eVTOL (electric vertical landing aircraft), helicopters, traditional fixed-wing aircraft, etc. According to the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration forecast, in 2025 China's low-air economy market size will reach 1.5 trillion yuan, in 2035 is expected to break 3.5 trillion yuan. At the same time, on how to better develop low-air equipment and low-air economy scenarios, there are still many topics worth in-depth study. For this, the "Global Times" from this period began to launch a series of reports "going close to the cutting edge of technology and low-view low-air industry

The Four Characteristics of Ideal Business

Issues such as the current development advantages of China's low-altitude economy and the characteristics of its ideal future business format triggered heated discussions among experts attending the meeting.

Professor Shen Yingchun, an academic member of the Research Center of Low-altitude Economy, Industry and Technology of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, believes that objectively speaking, China now has the conditions to develop low-altitude economy, such as the UAV industry. China has established significant advantages in the core technology field of UAV, and leads the world in the quantity and quality of patents. The consumer drone market accounts for more than 70% of the global share. In the field of eVTOL, China also ranks first with developed countries such as the United States and Germany. In addition, China's related technologies, such as breakthroughs in key components such as batteries, motors, and carbon fiber composites, some of which can be independently controlled and have the ability to vertically integrate the entire industry chain. Therefore, China has the objective conditions for low-altitude economic development. However, Shen Yingchun also said that at present, there are not many closed-loop scenarios of various "low-altitude economy +" in China, and they are still in the process of development.

The concept of low-air economy was put forward by China. Compared to developed countries such as the United States, especially developed by General Aviation, China has not fully developed air traffic due to a variety of reasons.

Liu Songrui, a researcher at the International Joint Research Center for Low-altitude Economy and Space Economy at Renmin University of China, said that the scale assessment of low-altitude economy is a major issue. One idea is to analyze based on the input-output table. For example, aircraft manufacturing related to low-altitude flight has its own upstream and downstream. Using the industrial correlation relationship in the input-output table, the sector and its driving effect on the upstream and downstream can be calculated. For example, to manufacture low-altitude aircraft, we first need various upstream raw material and parts manufacturing industries. When low-altitude aircraft are produced, they can be used in downstream industries such as agriculture. However, the idea based on industrial correlation may underestimate the potential impact of low-altitude economy to a certain extent. The reason is that the potential of developing low-altitude economy lies in narrowing the distance between people and things in the sense of time, realizing the optimization of resource allocation, increasing the opportunities for face-to-face communication between people and stimulating innovation vitality. Therefore, from a macro sense, the contribution of low-altitude economy to the overall economy may go beyond the scope of the description of input-output relationship. Therefore, Liu Songrui believes that the future of low-altitude economy is based on the ability to more closely connect people, people and things, and things and things. "To develop the low-altitude economy well, we must coordinate development and security. The ideal low-altitude economic format in the future is inseparable from the four characteristics of safety, controllability, intelligence, unmanned, and greenness. Frankly speaking, if we want to achieve The ideal state of the future still needs certain breakthroughs in the technical field."

Liu Xiaobo said that even in a relatively mature industry, technological advances are equally important. At present, drones are widely used in the fields of agricultural forests and cargo loading, drones can spray pesticides, fertilizers, loading goods, and have formed a stable business model. At present, drones have two key points in these relatively mature application scenarios, first is the battery durability, second is the drone¡¯s flight control and intelligent level. On the one hand, if you want to or more acres of single flight operations, or transport more heavy goods, it still requires a breakthrough in battery technology. On the other hand, intelligent drones can automatic flight operations, in the process to avoid obstacles in real time, in response to emergencies, requires backward computing support.

Chen Feng, director of communications of the low-air economy, said that the current low-air economy in practice can be mainly divided into four main scenarios: manned transportation, typical of eVTOL; industrial inspection, has begun to cover electricity, oil, gas, transportation, water supply, new energy, urban management and other fields; some large traditional logistics enterprises are starting a new type of drone logistics practice; drone lighting performance, which is a more widely used scene in the field of tourism.

Drones will be truly "unmanned"

Many experts also discussed at the meeting the problems that need to be solved to develop a low-altitude economy and future development trends.

Shen Yingchun, academic member of the Research Center for Low-altitude Economy Industry and Technology of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said that from the feedback from all parties, we still face many challenges in developing low-altitude economy. First of all, relevant laws and regulations are still lacking. "What everyone calls for more is that the airspace is not open enough, resulting in a limited airspace suitable for aircraft flight." There are also standardization issues, especially in areas such as eVTOL, which require airworthiness certification, and relevant standards are still being discussed and developed. In addition, the development of low-altitude economy also faces the problem of supporting infrastructure, including navigation airports, landing sites, charging stations, etc., all of which require a large amount of capital investment in engineering construction."

Liu Shengjun, director of the Commercial Law Research Center of Shanghai Normal University, said that our low-altitude economy actually combines the low-altitude flight of cities with traditional general aviation, but the current control system and mode continue the management mode and applicable standards of traditional transport aviation, which needs to be adjusted to adapt to the low-altitude economy. While emphasizing safety compliance, the regulatory authorities "actually need to assess whether the compliance costs of low-altitude enterprises are too high, and should take measures to reduce the compliance costs of low-altitude enterprises."

Liu Shengjun also said that there is no internationally recognized and uniform standard on the issue of airworthiness certification and standards of UAVs and eVTOLs. Therefore, when UAVs are exported or flying across borders in the future, it is necessary for two countries around the world to reach a bilateral airworthiness agreement to mutually recognize the airworthiness standards of UAVs or eVTOLs. "But this is also an opportunity. The technical standards of Chinese drones and eVTOL can be exported abroad. The airworthiness standards in the traditional transport aviation field are controlled by the United States and Europe, which have leading advantages. However, in the field of drones and eVTOL, I hope China can rely on its leading edge to export China's airworthiness standards to the world, which is also the establishment of an advantage."

Chen Fangfang, director of marketing communication of Yunsheng Intelligent, said that the operation of traditional drones in some scenarios requires the establishment of a dedicated drone pilot team, even a huge scale of tens of thousands of people. However, the current new trend is to provide truly unmanned drones, which do not require pilot operation at all, fly fully autonomously, and allow the drones to perform tasks with one click on the computer.

She said that the current China's leading drone system already has a fully automated airport, in which the drone can automatically replace the battery.When performing the operation, the loaded hanging cabin and sensor can also automatically replace the airport.Operators can deploy the drone and the fully automated airport in Hainan in Beijing, allowing the drone to take off the local inspection mission in Hainan.In addition, the drone's other development trend is fully intelligent, the body carries a computing chip, can carry out side computing, real-time identification, and output real-time information reports.

Should be "customized" for overseas markets

China is vigorously developing its low-altitude economy, and related industries not only need to face domestic demand, but also expand to larger and larger overseas markets.

Daniel Firmus, former Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Education of Argentina and director of the Ibero-American Research Center for Science, Technology and Innovation, used Argentina as an example to introduce in detail the special needs of different countries for drones. He said that Latin American countries such as Argentina have a great demand for drones in agriculture. "Argentina is famous for its humid Pampas grassland. This vast land is very fertile and rich in a variety of agricultural products. But on the other hand, Argentina's agriculture has its own characteristics, and the demand for drones is concentrated in two categories: the first is large producers with their own agricultural machinery technology and large areas of sowing land; the second is service intermediary companies, which are responsible for leasing drones to small agricultural production institutions that cannot afford to purchase drones."

Firmus said that the current help of drones to Argentine agriculture is concentrated in several major areas: crop testing; Agricultural irrigation; Sowing and yield estimation and plant counting; Topographic surveys, soil mapping and management of water resources and monitoring of agricultural infrastructure.

Most of the drones currently used in Argentina are manufactured in China, but Phelmus reminded that these drones are manufactured in standardized production, and the future urgently needs Chinese drone manufacturers to target software and technology adjustments to suit the local market and demand in Argentina, which is also the biggest gap in the field of agricultural drones in Argentina.

Filmus also said that Argentina needs not only China to provide drones, but more importantly follow-up services, including drone operators training and no one can be as good and good quality, price and cheap as Chinese products, in the field of drones, no other country can compete with China. I hope to help China improve drone adaptability in Argentina, and look forward to further cooperation.

Liu Songrui, a researcher at the International Joint Research Center for Low-altitude Economy and Space Economy at Renmin University of China, agreed with Firmus's view that "agricultural drones need to be customized to go out to sea." He introduced,"Different regions have different elevations, different meteorological conditions such as temperature and humidity, and different types of crops planted. There is actually many room for customized improvement in agricultural drones. The current trend of agricultural plant protection drones is autonomous driving. First, let a small aerial drone fly aerial, model the land to be operated through 3D software, and set it to generate a flight trajectory. Therefore, the optimization and improvement of many algorithms actually rely on the accumulation of experience in real scenarios. If we can carry out targeted development of drone software and hardware based on the main crop types of the country, we will undoubtedly better improve service quality."

Liu Songrui believes that overseas, many countries do not have relatively convenient high-speed railway and highway network systems, and the transportation demand in this area may be more suitable for low-altitude aircraft to make up for it, so there are different opportunities from domestic ones.

Guo´æº£, director of the Social and Cultural Chamber of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Latin American Research Institute, said that at present, Brazil, Argentina and other agricultural great nations, drone demand is strong, low-air development policy is relatively in the forefront, while some other Latin American countries, the relevant regulations of drone regulation are not yet perfect, China drone enterprises, will promote China drone standards to these countries. he also reminded that the Latin American countries to privacy rights, personal information protection is very important, such as Brazil, Argentina has developed special data protection laws, so China drone entered Latin American countries, in these areas also need to give special attention.

Li Qinglin, Chief Market Officer of Dover Airlines, Chief Supervisor of the Low-Air Economic Drone Association of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area, reminded that China has implemented strict control over drone exports in recent years, even if it establishes factories overseas through formal channels, it also involves the transfer of drone technology and other problems, and the industry needs to standardize the landing.