The most profound thinking of the unmanned aerial vehicle in China

In recent years, the UAV has attracted a lot of attention and discussion. The Giants favor drones. Abroad, Amazon launched the Prime Air UAV Logistics program, has entered the 9th generation of product research and development, Google acquisition of unmanned aircraft company Titan Aerospace, recently also a secret research and development of two years of unmanned aircraft project Wing;facebook to 20 million dollars to buy British drone company Ascenta Disneyland has also introduced drones; even former wired editor Chris Anderson left and joined the drone industry to start 3D Robotics, which has recently been financed. At home, DJI in the consumer-level aerial market, the rapid development of the EHang, just set up this year also launched the Ghost, recently also won a new a round of financing.

Polar Fly (Xaircraft) is one of the earliest companies to research and development of multi-rotor UAV, founded in 2007, headquartered in Guangzhou, by the former Microsoft China region MVP Peng Bin founded. Recently, they have just received a 20 million dollar a round of financing, by this opportunity I also chatted with Peng Bin a lot of drones and the things that fly.

The drone market is exploding.

Whether it is capital, or ordinary users, have felt the rapid development of unmanned aerial vehicles, the market in the outbreak of the drone. What is it that has contributed to this development and explosion?

Peng Bin says the drone's explosion has a big connection to the popularity of smartphones and electronic products. The unmanned aerial vehicle inertial guidance system may use the gyroscope, the electronic compass, the GPS and so on the sensor, but along with this handset popularity, these materials all become cheap, the inertial navigation cost also decreases. On the other hand, although the battery capacity in the past few years to improve the density is not small, but the price of the battery is down all the way, the original thousands of-dollar battery, is now relatively cheap, large magnification of the battery can be widely used in unmanned aircraft. In addition, glass fiber, carbon fiber, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, is now readily available, and costs have been reduced, and the power system brushless motor and drive in the UAV system has improved greatly. These factors have contributed to the growing popularity of drones as a tool for aerial filming or as an intelligent toy.

How far can the drone be? Is it possible to enter every household like a smartphone. This estimate is not necessarily. Airspace resources are scarce limited resources, in the aerial film and other consumer-level areas are likely to be like GoPro as a standard, and the whole industry is more like the automotive industry. One day, perhaps nobody will be more close to our life, solve our practical problems, especially on the ground can not solve the problem, this time the UAV should be regarded as universal.

Looking back on smartphones over the years, Google launched the Android open source system, coupled with the MTK turnkey program, a large number of smart machines appear in the following, the smartphone market really broke out. In the unmanned aerial vehicle industry, although also has the open source plan, but solves actually more is the geek, creates the customer to the UAV experience the demand, accelerates is like the aerial photograph such "toy" market development. Really want to do a consumer-grade market, but also need security, material, process considerations, or the need for professional manufacturers, the production of quality assurance products.

A favored drone

What is behind the massive influx of capital into this field? Perhaps the backdrop to the revival of smart hardware may be the rise of the aerial market. But in the extreme fly, the UAV should be an industry, not just a hardware, not only toys. Only in such a background to see the drone, can fully understand the industry.

The UAV can do the logistics, can provide WiFi hotspot service, can aerial photograph surveying ... The cost of the machine is decreasing, the cost of people is rising, when these two cost lines converge, it will become the turning point of the UAV. Even without the market share and the business model, the economic significance of the drone is already evident.

As a tool for aerial filming, drones help people "see the world" and make technology interesting. But drones are far more important. In the extreme fly, the drone is making technology meaningful. Earthquake rescue, unmanned aircraft to send a bottle of water, may be able to save a life. In the case of fire, the UAV can preempt the fire engine, survey the surrounding environment, and work out the best route. Public relations venues even if there is no corner monitoring can not be, if there are unmanned aircraft real-time patrol, it is likely to avoid a lot of riots. If the UAV is used for agricultural production, it can control the amount of pesticide and fertilizer, and the pesticide pollution can reduce to some extent. All these things that drones can do are all about life safety.

Create a new industry

Extremely fly 2007 years to do unmanned aircraft, the fancy is also the aerial market, when their slogan or "Control Black-and-White to see the world", but from 2011 onwards they have planned to do transformation, to the industry application transformation, so that science and technology meaningful.

As we have already reported, NASA is developing a drone "low-altitude traffic management system" that is expected to be used in agriculture in 2015, and Skycatch, the drone maker, which collects data from construction, mining, solar, and agriculture, has already received 13.2 million of billions of dollars in funding. In addition to these, drones have a lot to do. Bees of the size of drones pollinate flowers (now done); Medical unmanned aerial vehicles are monitored and repaired in vivo; In the future, when your child goes to school or play, there will be a fleet of drones at your disposal. The combination of high-resolution camera and face recognition technology allows drones to master anyone's dynamics anytime, anywhere. Again, there may be people like Google who use solar powered drones to build an Internet that covers the entire planet, or use drones in riot and defense.

At present, the flying small unmanned aerial vehicles have been used in medical rescue, low level logistics, security monitoring, forest fire prevention, geological exploration, film and television aerial, aerial mapping, polar examination and other industries. Now more mature or at low level logistics. Last year, extremely fly has been and international well-known logistics Express Company's joint test flight, because it involves trade secrets, temporarily not convenient to disclose information about each other. Currently, the fourth generation of logistics drones is being developed, and the products have been evaluated in Australia and China.

The first time I saw Amazon report on the delivery of unmanned aircraft, it is estimated that many people like me, the head will immediately jump out of a scene, this is to buy things to send the pace of the plane. Until a later event, the Peng Bin said how they use drones to do logistics.

In the idea of flying, like abroad, let the drone automatically navigate to your backyard, unload things, and then swing the sleeves do not take away a cloud away, such a scene in the country may not be achieved in the future. Like a few days ago on the internet spread out the news, let the UAV delivery to high-rise room, indoor navigation is a problem, for show can, but the actual application is not realistic. That sent to the balcony, it is estimated that a lot of people can enjoy the "buy things Plane" of "welfare", in the domestic also no logistics companies willing to risk this economic risks to try. That's not good, that's not good, so what can the drone logistics do? Very fly and their partners to solve the last 50 meters before the logistics problems, such as from a logistics point to another logistics point of transport problems. The last 50 meters still need artificial to solve, but this person is not necessarily now full-time logistics personnel, community security these people can come to part-time.

Now the cost of sending one piece of cargo to the UAV is about a few dollars, and the cost of the basic and manual delivery is close. Human cost growth is the trend, after the 00 will be willing to engage in logistics work will also decline, the future of the unmanned aircraft delivery is the general trend.

The city's traffic congestion is more and more serious, looking up, our sky is still empty, point to point of the straight line flight, save the time cost is also a large number.

300 meters high altitude safety

Think about the future, the top of your head, the visible place and the invisible place, there are all kinds of drones flying around, always feel the whole people are bad. On the security issue, Peng Bin also said a lot of their own views.

In fact, the safety and reliability of the UAV is far better than the ground transportation. Unmanned aerial vehicles do not have to consider the problem of manned, do not consider the problem of human comfort, you can have a lot of space to do redundancy and other security settings, for example, can be configured in a UAV two to three sets of flight control system, can also be installed in unmanned aircraft parachute and other devices.

In sci-fi movies, the drone's shuttle between buildings should be difficult to achieve in the short term. Drones are generally flying at a height of 300 meters, and few buildings are more than 300 meters away, so they can be avoided when planning route navigation. Like AK47 accurate shooting effective distance is within 300 meters, taking into account the drone flight speed, the probability of being shot down should not be too large.

What is the biggest security problem that no one has ever faced? It's probably just a signal disturbance. And these can be solved from the algorithm and design.

Management and governance in Chinese style

There is a problem, the drone in any country is not open, that is government policy. Since the news of a drone flying to Zhongnanhai, both entrepreneurs and consumers are worried about whether the government will ban drones. The last time to participate in the charm of the hardware communication will be a reporter to EHang questions, whether the future will be promised to consumers, if the government ban fly the full return.

Peng Bin to 36 Krypton revealed that flying has been talking with civil aviation for some time cooperation, both sides are also promoting the management of unmanned aircraft. In fact, the Government and civil aviation related units are already very clear that the policy cannot imprison the development of science and technology, such as unmanned aerial vehicles must be a rising industry, and in fact, it is willing to co-operate with manufacturers to promote the management and regulation of UAVs. In the next year or two, it is likely to introduce stringent standards to plan the entire industry of drones.

For the government, the first concern is traceability, which can be traced back to the manufacturer, owner and flight history of each UAV. Perhaps the future will give each UAV with an identity, representing the identity of the drone.

Another problem that the Government is concerned about is the drone management. This will be a more comprehensive, complex system, and the surface of the motor vehicle management is much like, involving the production of unmanned aircraft, annual inspection, routes, services and even insurance issues. For example, the production of unqualified or without an annual inspection of the UAV can not take off, so as to ensure the safety of the UAV.

In the United States, except for the relevant provisions of the airspace are civil aviation, in China, in addition to civil aviation airspace, the rest of the Air Force. So it's hard to open up the low, but now it's moving forward. The so-called open, also does not mean that can fly casually, but said like Australia has a can apply for flight channels, as long as you use the phone or online application, civil aviation will be in a very short period of time, to see if there are flying routes, whether there is a storm, to give you an answer, tell you whether you can fly, and then charge a certain amount of consulting fees.

The future of the UAV audit, may also adopt a similar approach, at this stage may be charged higher, but in the future may be like a marriage license, charge a few dollars. The meteorological services obtained each year may also be charged. As long as it is a normal charge, it is reasonable. Now the drone is not a good name, when the drone can be reasonable, legitimate flight, insurance companies can insure, the UAV market will be very sound and healthy.