From the bankruptcy of "the King of crowdfunding" to see the four-hurdle of the drone business

There is no doubt that drones are one of the hottest products in the field of smart hardware today. With capital and players pouring in, new products from the mass-raising platform are emerging.

But just last week, the Zano drone, the Kickstarter champion of the end of 2014, failed to announce his first anniversary, with more than 15,000 orders largely out of delivery and $3.4 million of supporters floating.

According to Zano's own announcement, the problem lies in the large and unpredictable hardware and software tuning errors in the prototype transition to the mass production stage, which not only interferes with the production schedule, but also directly affects the actual performance.

Among the propaganda caliber of the crowdfunding period, the estimated $245 drone is only palm-sized and weighs less than 60 grams, and can fly up to 30 meters high and stay at a fixed point to shoot HD images. It is controlled by the mobile app, which automatically circumvents obstacles during flight and automatically returns when it is too far away or under power.

In fact, if the product is eventually produced and brought to market, there will be great prospects. However, technology has finally become a stumbling block. In fact, seemingly just upgrade version of the drone, far more than you think it is so simple, and the following 4 items are the core of all of its technology.

First of all, it's battery life.

This is the biggest hurdle for drones and is almost the Achilles heel of all current consumer electronics.

Unlike large military drones, civilian drones mostly use electricity rather than aviation fuel. In the battery energy density has not yet made a major breakthrough today, including DJI's major UAV products, the longest battery life of not more than 25 minutes, in the case of a barrier-free maximum signal effective distance (also to a certain extent equivalent to the farthest distance) not more than 5 km. At the same time, the drone's need for hover and vertical landing also makes it possible to achieve it only by means of four axes (and possibly more), which will naturally increase its energy consumption compared to fixed-wing aircraft.

(Phantom 3 battery shown on DJI website)

Back in the Zano, the size of the palm obviously prevented it from carrying a larger battery. According to the official data at the time, it can support 10-15 minutes of flight, and in practical applications, such a range can only support one flight at a time.

The second is the manipulation.

This is one of the biggest controversies in the industry today, with a major focus on the balance between security and ease of use.

At present, through the independent remote control and mobile phone app directly control is currently used more than two ways, the former is the representative of the DJI, the latter is billion, Zano way is the latter.

(The UAV app displayed on the website of billion airlines)

For the former, despite a large "cumbersome", but its solid rocker can allow operators to more accurate and effective control of the aircraft, its independent and stable radio can also ensure that high-definition image transmission will not interfere with the normal operation of remote communication. The advantage of the latter is that it greatly reduces the operating threshold of ordinary users.

However, unmanned aerial vehicles as a vehicle, security is always put in the first place. It is not only about the safety of the operator itself, but also about "onlookers", which is a matter that needs to be treated with caution.

Third, it's shooting.

This is the core purpose of most consumer-oriented civilian drones and is also a cross-border technology outside of the flight.

In fact, a good UAV product is also naturally a good motion camera camera products, which involves the stability of precision, lens compatibility and rotation range and other aspects of technology. In this, the difficulty is not in 1080P or 4K of clarity, but in the inevitable flight jitter process to maintain the stability of the image. At present, some drones use self-developed integrated cameras, while some are directly equipped with GoPro related products.

At the same time, because the UAV product needs to transfer the real-time picture to the handheld device, it has higher requirements for transmission distance, delay and sharpness. And most of the current consumer-class UAV mainstream solutions are more than 2.4GHz of WiFi map, support 500 meters to 800 meters of image transmission, high-definition graphics transmission needs of the codec scheme is higher cost.

Finally, it's intelligence.

This is the UAV difference from the model of the key factors, but also the future development of unmanned aerial vehicles.

In mid-November, Baker (public number: zhidxcom) and Tang Zhenyu, head of Intel's perceptual computing business, and the head of its China business, had a face-to-face communication about its RealSense RealSense technology. The latter attempt to use 3D cameras and sensors to give the UAV vision to judge the ability to achieve in the complex environment of autonomous flight.

"Now drones can sometimes bump into something, and if the RealSense technology is integrated, it will fly freely in the sky like a bird without bumping into anything because it has a sense of distance," he told the 3D scanner. "The average camera is no sense of distance, it has no depth, and it doesn't know how far it is from the tree," the person said. But with the 3D camera, it's like the eyes of a bird, and it knows how to get around the tree, and you never see a bird fly and hit a tree. ”

As far as RealSense is concerned, it can support the installation of 1 to 6 3D cameras on drones, "If you only install 1 sensors, it is actually enough for the basic application, the drone itself will turn, it has a sense of the surroundings." "However, if it is a 360-degree panorama without dead-angle capture, you need to put in 6."

In fact, not just Intel's RealSense technology, intelligence has become a "necessity" for the next generation of drones. At present, most UAV products only through the Central flight control system and ground operators to interact, and complete the flight beyond the horizon, but also far less than the height of artificial intelligence.

Of course, the creation of a UAV and more than a few thresholds, it will also involve the key lightweight airframe, power plant, sensors, communications, command and Control (C3) system, GPS positioning and a large number of information technology support. But at present from the DJI, billion, zero, polar fly and other domestic major UAV manufacturers of specific products, in the cost-based consideration, it has basically reached or close to the current technical stage of the more mature level, the development also tends to stabilize.

The Zano, which was mentioned at the beginning of the return, despite rumors about misappropriation of funds, the core cause of "death" is technology itself-perhaps its ideal and advanced concept lacks the support of existing technology, and such a small team can not cope with the huge and complicated research and development pressure. However, although Zano finally ended in tragedy, but it represents the future of the general consumer of the UAV product miniaturization development direction, battery life, control, shooting and intelligence will become its core technology competition.

Industry reports from the US-based group forecast that drones will be the mega-market for tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 years. According to public information, at present, China's manufacturing has accounted for the global civilian UAV market 90% of the export share, in the domestic also has nearly 200 unmanned aerial production enterprises. However, in this core technology has less than 10, more than 95% of the enterprises from the traditional model aircraft, toy manufacturers to transition, are doing aircraft assembly, and no independent research and development capabilities.

In fact, aside from the grey area of policy and the hidden worries of "black fly", the disorder of market competition and the lack of intellectual property protection have already restricted the benign development of the whole industry, and even the vicious circle of inferior currency expelling good currency. At the end of the 17th session of the High fair, the industry has expected that due to fierce competition in the market, no strength and technical content of the UAV next year will fail half of the company.

When the hot money market tends to be rational, they can see who is swimming naked. Between ideal and reality, the next Zano may not be far away from us.

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From the bankruptcy of "the King of crowdfunding" to see the four-hurdle of the drone business