innovation drives low-altitude economy to a new prospect
2024-09-15
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xinhua news agency, beijing, september 14th, title: interview notes: innovation drives the low-altitude economy to take off into a new picture
xinhua news agency reporters ren jun, li sijia and mao siqian
meituan drones deliver food in the rain, fengyi drones achieve large-scale cross-city delivery, and the "low-altitude digital base" is being built at an accelerated pace... technological innovation has brought new prospects for the low-altitude economy.
in the rain in shenzhen, meituan's drone routes are operating as usual. at the meituan drone take-off point in the coast city business district in nanshan district, hot and cold drinks, fresh snacks and other takeaways are boxed and weighed one by one, and then delivered to the meituan drone cabinet several kilometers away by a six-axis multi-rotor drone. since the first order was delivered in shenzhen in 2021, meituan's drone routes have covered parks, scenic spots, communities, campuses and other scenes, and its business has expanded to shanghai, guangzhou, beijing and other places, with a total of more than 300,000 orders completed nationwide.
the large-scale "take-to-air" delivery of food cannot be achieved without the support of scientific and technological forces. ai visual recognition technology is used to identify the qr code on the landing point to achieve a smooth and accurate landing. the drone camera and several millimeter-wave radars, supplemented by self-built 3d high-precision maps, improve the perception of the environment and achieve automatic obstacle avoidance. the blade boundary layer is optimized to reduce flight noise...
"the low-altitude environment in cities is complex and changeable. meituan uavs are constantly improving their models, and can fly stably in moderate rain, moderate snow, level 6 wind, weak light and other environments." yan yan, head of public affairs for meituan uavs, said that as of june this year, meituan uavs had more than 400 patents; more than 90% of the aircraft and intelligent scheduling system components were independently developed; the battery cycle life of the uav reached more than 600 times, and the motor working life was increased to 1,000 hours.
another company that is deeply engaged in the field of drone logistics is sf express's fengyi drone team.
at the fengyi uav operation center in bao'an district, shenzhen, reporters saw several medium-sized drones landing on pieces of qr code visual cloth on the ground one after another. as the eight-rotor propellers stopped turning, the staff removed the baskets loaded with express delivery from under the drones, and the courier completed the final delivery.
du shenyun, the head of the operation center, told reporters that since the beginning of this year, fengyi uavs have flown nearly 1,000 times a day in shenzhen. express mail within shenzhen arrives in an average of 2 hours, and express mail from shenzhen to dongguan, zhuhai, and zhongshan arrives in an average of 3 hours. "fengyi has independently developed a narrowband cellular communication system that can provide signal coverage for mountain and water routes below 300 meters. it is also equipped with a 4g module to ensure the stability of long-distance communication of uavs," said du shenyun.
fengyi uavs use a pre-set autonomous flight mode, and dispatch and monitor the flight process through a "high-density autonomous dispatch system." in a uav command center with an area of more than 20 square meters next to the take-off and landing field, three captains are monitoring the dynamic parameters of uavs. on the display screen, several uavs move little by little on the route, and information such as the starting point and route are clearly visible.
"each captain can control two routes and more than 10 drones at the same time." captain qu jin of the operations center said that the subsequent dispatch system will be continuously updated to further improve operational safety and efficiency.
cameras in the air, robots in the air, cars in the air…there is still a lot of imagination at low altitudes.
"drones with flexible arms can clean high-altitude exterior glass; drones flying close to the ground can sweep mines and find minerals; drones combined with ai can perform formation performances and show sky-screen movies... drones can be used in all 360 industries." yang jincai, president of the shenzhen drone industry association, said, "the development of drones still requires continuous breakthroughs and applications in new materials, new energy, and digital management of low-altitude operations."
only when you can control it can you fly well. many teams are working on how to better coordinate and manage manned and unmanned aircraft to prevent collisions and crossing of routes.
the engineering teams of citic offshore helicopter co., ltd. and china telecom are working together to build a digital tower, striving to break the data isolation between different aircraft and build an intelligent air operation command system.
"at present, general aviation and civil aviation data have been connected to the digital tower, and drone data is also in the process of being connected. we have also reserved a data interface with the civil unmanned aerial vehicle integrated management platform. all subsequent data will be linked to one source." said fu xiaoyue, manager of the back-end development team of the software research center of china telecom shenzhen branch.
for low-altitude management, shenzhen has set a timetable: strive to have the service guarantee capability to support more than 1,000 commercial low-altitude aircraft in the air at the same time and 10,000 flights per day by the end of 2025.
data shows that by 2023, the scale of my country's low-altitude economy will exceed 500 billion yuan, and is expected to reach 2 trillion yuan by 2030. not only in shenzhen, the low-altitude economy is accelerating in many places. the yuandu uav manufactured in yanqing, beijing, built a communication base station for the areas affected by typhoon "makar", and the wofei changkong electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (evtol) manufactured in chengdu completed full-size, full-weight, full-envelope tilt transition and other flight test subjects...
from bustling cities to border towns, from farmland management to disaster relief, low-altitude flight scenarios are increasing, and flight activities are becoming more frequent, bringing new impetus to economic development. (end)
