Industrial spring and policy threshold of consumption UAV

In recent times, domestic "unmanned aircraft" frequent appearances, from the highest end of military check play one machine, civilian professional machine to the low-end consumer toy machines, such as both with a big diamond ring to fly to a star to the scene, but also with high-definition video equipment crashed in the Syrian battlefield, the White House lawn and other international politically sensitive areas.

The domestic drones, which look like giant spiders, have not yet caused a "threat" in the relevant fields, simply because their antecedents are too short to be an evocative element ——— can be bought on a treasure of thousands of RMB, without any certification or approval from any authority; You can play with your hands. Word, an era in which everyone can easily control "drones" has come.

"Drone" is not a product of new concepts, but in recent years suddenly in full swing in the civil market (or more precisely the consumer market) spread, because of its cost and operability to achieve a revolutionary breakthrough, so that it can from the traditional military, aerial survey, sports and other relatively high-end professional field cross-border into the mass consumer market.

And some of the aircraft, "UAV" in the category can also be divided into fixed-wing aircraft and rotor-type machine two categories, the current consumer market concerns the highest, is the rotor-like "multi-axis aircraft." A "Multi-Axis vehicle" is a vehicle that relies on multiple rotors to generate lift and operate by adjusting the power output of each shaft. Compared with fixed-wing aircraft, the "Multi-Axis vehicle" has low power efficiency, slow speed, short voyage and small load, so it is considered not to have practical significance in military and civil professional field for a long time. But its advantages are also very prominent, such as high flight stability, and very flexible control (everywhere can take-off and landing, can be arbitrarily hovering). The concept of "Multi-Axis aircraft" was born early, but it was kept away from the mainstream due to the innate defects of power inefficiency. Until nearly 20 years of civilian consumption level of high-powered micro-motor, lithium batteries, wireless remote control and video capture and transmission technology collectively achieved a revolutionary breakthrough, "multi-axis aircraft" to achieve the "fish back", for the non-professionals and the mass consumer market to provide close to the aircraft, remote sensing, monitoring and even small pieces of logistics services. This is the "Multi-Axis aircraft" in the civilian consumer-level unmanned aerial vehicle market, almost become a consumer-level UAV synonymous with the root causes.

The current typical "multi-axis aircraft" load under 500 grams, the duration of 25 minutes, remote control distance of 1-kilometer ——— from this set of technical indicators, it is called "toys" is not too much. But even so, "Multi-Axis aircraft" has been able to do many more than the "toy" function of the productive work, such as Farm patrol, the real estate industry remote viewing room, film and television creation in the aerial, and even can be used for military close to the battlefield monitoring (such as in the Syrian battlefield of the great Xinjiang unmanned aircraft to undertake such tasks). From the point of view of application industry, some traditional business markets, such as aerial photographing, remote sensing and prospecting, are likely to be preempted by cheaper civilian drones in the future.

From the perspective of manufacturing industry, China's "unmanned aircraft" industry is clearly entering the spring. To "Multi-Axis aircraft" as the representative of civilian consumption-level UAV, its own technical content is not high, the same type of products it is difficult to open up a large gap in technical indicators, the competition between them is mainly cost. As a leading manufacturing country in the world, the industrial matching system and labor cost both dominate the Chinese consumption-level unmanned aerial vehicle industry, which is obvious to the competitive advantage of competitors. At the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held by Las Vegas in January this year, almost half of the 14 exhibitors from the drone industry came from China! such as the unmanned aerial vehicle which crashed in the Syrian battlefield and the White House lawn, its manufacturer is in Shenzhen's great Xinjiang innovation. According to relevant estimates, in the global small unmanned aerial vehicle market, only the great Xinjiang occupies about half of the share ——— the market value of about 250 million-300 million U.S. dollars, and the annual increase of 20%, "money" is very impressive.

But at the same time when the civilian consumer-level unmanned aerial vehicle industry enters the spring, the relevant policies and regulations around the world are also poised to be ready, and in the future, it will be the watershed of the industrial development.

Since it has long been defined as a remote control model toy, the relevant agencies have almost never implemented effective supervision of civilian consumption-level unmanned aerial vehicles, but also lack the corresponding supervision basis, means and responsibility division. Thus, in recent years, there have been repeated civil drone incursions into the military restricted zone or civil clearance area incidents, even as mentioned earlier also invaded the White House. Because the consumption-grade UAV (especially the "Multi-Axis vehicle" with low power efficiency) usually flies under the hundred meters, even if it's only twenty or thirty meters, it's also not a threat to hit or cause other ground accidents-think about it, when you're driving at a speed of 100 km/h, What happens when an unmanned drone that delivers a courier to Amazon happens to hit the windshield? In addition, because the consumption-level UAV in the purchase process equivalent to ordinary toys, and platform versatility, only need to replace different functional modules can perform different tasks, and therefore there are also used to carry out the risk of terrorist attacks.

As a result, the FAA, the SU Aviation safety system, recently said that the final regulatory rules for small drones would be introduced between 2016 and 2019. According to the FAA's current requirements, unmanned aircraft users need to ensure that their vehicles do not enter commercial airspace unless they are licensed to operate. But since even the White House lawn can drop drones, what is impossible? In recent years, there have been many cases of drone jamming and civil aircraft flying, although it has not caused serious accidents so far, it is obviously urgent to strengthen the supervision.

In addition, turning drones from "toys" into "tools of production" or "transport vehicles" often involve serious legal issues in many countries and regions. Currently, a number of countries have established licensing procedures for the commercial operation of UAVs. But for the flexible and inexpensive UAV, it is obvious that the cost input and the operational difficulty in implementing the regulation are also great.

Overall, technological advances are leading the way for civilian consumer-level drones to achieve more and more of their functions at very low cost, and the outlook for the entire market is encouraging. But the safety rules and the commercial entry threshold under consideration are the biggest variables of industrial development ——— the limits and how high the threshold is, which is expected to be met within two or three years. As the main manufacturing country of the consumer-level unmanned aerial vehicle, Chinese enterprises are very necessary to take precautions and advance the corresponding functional pre-research and technical reserve.