What do you need to know about drones?

Absrtact: First, UAV is what UAV is the abbreviation of unmanned aircraft (unmanned aerial Vehicle), is the use of radio remote control equipment and the process of self-controlled aircraft, including unmanned helicopter, fixed-wing aircraft, multi-rotor aircraft, unmanned

What is a drone?

UAV is the abbreviation of unmanned aircraft (unmanned aerial Vehicle), is the use of radio remote control equipment and the process of controlling the aircraft, including unmanned helicopter, fixed-wing aircraft, multi-rotor aircraft, unmanned airship, unmanned wing aircraft. Broadly speaking, it also includes nearby spacecraft (20-100 km airspace), such as stratospheric airships, high-altitude balloons, solar drones, etc. In some ways, drones can be considered "airborne robots" by completing complex aerial missions and various load tasks in unmanned conditions.

According to different platform configuration, UAV can be mainly fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle, unmanned helicopter and multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle three platforms, other small type UAV platform also includes parachute-wing UAV, flapping-wing UAV and unmanned spacecraft and so on. Fixed-wing UAV is the mainstream platform of military and most civilian UAV, the most characteristic is that the flight speed is faster; The unmanned helicopter is the most flexible UAV platform, can take off and hover in situ vertically, multi-rotor (multi-axis) UAV is the preferred platform for consumption and partial civilian use, Flexibility is between fixed wing and helicopter (lift required), but easy to operate, low cost.

According to different areas of use, the UAV can be divided into military, civil and consumer class, for the performance requirements of unmanned aircraft have a bias: 1 military UAV for sensitivity, flight altitude speed, intelligence, etc. have higher requirements, is the highest technical level of unmanned aerial vehicles, including reconnaissance, decoy, electronic confrontation, communications relay, Drone and unmanned fighter aircraft and other models;
2 Civil UAV general for speed, ceiling and voyage and other requirements are lower, but for personnel training, comprehensive costs have higher requirements, so the need to form a mature industrial chain to provide the lowest possible parts and support services, at present, the largest commercial UAV market is the provision of government public services, such as police, fire, Meteorological, accounting for about 70% of the total demand, and we believe that the future of the largest potential unmanned aircraft market may be in the civil, the new market demand may appear in agricultural plant protection, cargo speed, air wireless network, data acquisition and other fields;
3 The consumer-level UAV generally uses the lower cost of the multi-rotor platform for aerial rackets, games and other recreational uses.

(Figure: World Civil UAV use field composition)

Second, the technical difficulties of UAV

1, the flight control system is unmanned aircraft "the pilot"-more accurate, clearer

The Flying control subsystem is the core system of the whole flight process, such as takeoff, aerial flight, execution task and encore recovery, and flight control is one of the most core technologies of UAV, which is equivalent to the driver's role for the UAV. Flight control generally includes sensors, airborne computers and servo-driven equipment for three major parts, the realization of the main features of UAV attitude stability and control, UAV mission equipment management and emergency control three categories.

Among them, a large number of sensors assembled by the fuselage (including angular rate, posture, position, acceleration, height and airspeed, etc.) are the basis of flight control system, is to ensure the accuracy of aircraft control, in different flight environment, different uses of the UAV to the sensor configuration requirements are also different. In the future, the requirement of UAV situation perception, identification of enemy and foe, and standoff ability in the battlefield requires that the UAV sensor has higher detection accuracy and higher resolution, so many new technologies such as hyperspectral imaging, synthetic aperture radar, UHF penetrating etc. are applied in foreign UAV sensors.

2, the navigation system is unmanned aircraft's "eye", the technology combination is the future direction

The navigation system provides the position, speed and flight posture of reference coordinates to the UAV, and directs the UAV to fly according to the specified route, which is equivalent to a pilot in the system. Unmanned airborne navigation system is mainly divided into two kinds of independent (GPS) and autonomous (inertial guidance), however, there are some shortcomings, such as easy interference and error accumulation, and the future development of UAV requires obstacle avoidance, material or weapon delivery, automatic landing, etc., which require high accuracy, high reliability, high anti-interference performance, Therefore, the combination of multiple navigation technology "inertial + multi-sensor +gps+ Photoelectric navigation system" will be the future development direction.

3, power system-turbine is expected to gradually replace the piston, new energy engine upgrade endurance

Different uses of UAV for power plant requirements are different, but all want the engine small size, low cost, reliable work: 1 The UAV currently widely used power plant for the piston engine, but the piston is only suitable for low-speed low altitude small UAV; 2 for disposable drone, suicide drones or missiles, Requires thrust ratio but short life (1-2H), general use of turbojet engine; 3 Low altitude unmanned helicopter generally uses the Eddy axis engine, the high altitude long voyage large UAV generally uses the turbofan engine (the American Global Eagle weighs up to 12t); 4 Consumption-Class micro-UAV (multi-rotors) generally use battery-powered motors, Take-off quality less than 100 grams, the duration of less than one hour.

Looking forward, we believe that with the turbine engine thrust ratio, the life of the continuous improvement, fuel consumption reduced, the turbine will replace the piston as the main engine of the UAV, solar energy, hydrogen and other new power motors are also expected to provide a more lasting survival power for small drones.

4, the data chain is "kite-flying Line" – from the independent dedicated system to the global Information grid (GIG) transition

Data Link transmission system is an important technical component of UAV, responsible for the UAV remote control, telemetry, tracking positioning and sensor transmission, uplink data link to unmanned Aerial vehicle remote control, downlink data chain to perform telemetry, data transmission functions. Most common unmanned aerial vehicles adopt the custom Line-of-sight data chain, while in the high altitude and long voyage UAV will use the visual range and the Over-the-horizon data link.

With the development of modern data link technology, the UAV data link develops in the direction of high speed, wide band, secrecy and Anti-interference, and the UAV's practical ability will be more and more strong. Looking forward, as airborne sensors, positioning and the sophistication of the complexity of the implementation of the task is increasing, the loan of the data chain put forward a strong demand, in the future with the rapid development of airborne high-speed processor, the current RF data chain will be expected to double the transmission rate after several years, Laser communication may also occur in the future in areas of low demand.

Based on the development strategy of UAV Communication network developed in USA, Data link system from the initial IP transmission, the multi-computer interconnection network, is transforming the transmission to the satellite network, as well as the final complete global Information grid (GIG) configuration transition, for authorized users to provide seamless global information resource interaction capability, both support fixed users, also supports mobile users.

Iii. The origin of UAV development

1, military technology spillover, cost reduction detonated civil market

War is the biggest traction force of unmanned aerial vehicle development, and experienced three technology development tide at the end of 20th century
There is no doubt that the drone's initial development was for purely military purposes: the First World War was defined as a "flying bomb", and the Germans had begun to use unmanned bombers to combat the war, and the Center for the development of unmanned aerial vehicles was found in the United States and Israel. The use extends to battlefield reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, and drones are dispatched to North Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf to help combat the U.S. and Israeli forces. It is because the UAV in the detection of low-cost, flexible control, long duration of natural advantages, the national Army has invested a large number of funds to develop UAV systems.

At the end of 20th century, UAV technology experienced three development tide, really entered the first "Golden Age": 1 after 1990, the world a total of more than 30 countries equipped with division (large) Tactical UAV system, Representative models have the United States "hunters", "pioneers", Israel "Scout", "Pioneer" and so on 2) After 1993, the rapid development of the military UAV in the middle altitude long voyage with the United States "tyre" UAV development plan as the representative, in the Bosnian war shine; 3. At the end of 20th century, the brigade-level (small and medium) fixed wing and rotor tactical UAV system appeared, its small size, lower price, good maneuverability, Indicates that the UAV has entered a large-scale application era.

Early aviation technology solves the problem that drones can fly, since the 1980s, the development of modern technology has provided the conditions for higher flight performance and better reliability of UAV, among them: 1 Intelligent: Autonomous flight control technology, the rapid rise of computer processing capabilities to promote the development of intelligent unmanned aircraft, really become " Think "of the airborne robot; 2) high-speed bandwidth: high-speed broadband network data link to achieve the UAV Network and interconnection, unmanned aircraft Group, Air-to-ground equipment joint possible; 3 lighter materials and sensors: materials science and micro-electro-technology further reduce the UAV platform weight and improve accuracy 4) Stronger endurance: a dramatic increase in battery endurance and new energy technologies that give drones longer flight time.

2, technology to the civilian spillover, unmanned aircraft industrialization into the era of popularization

Due to the remarkable advantages and flexible features of the military UAV in the "3D" (dull,dirty,dangerous) environment, the application of UAV in all walks of life is eagerly awaited. But compared with the development history of the military UAV in the last century, the Civil unmanned Aerial vehicle (UAV) has been applied to the development of the modern system of the military UAV in the 80, and the application is only more than 10 years in all fields.

Japan's civilian UAV development earlier: As early as 1983 Yamaha used motorcycle engine, developed an unmanned helicopter for spraying pesticides, 1989 it became the actual first successful flight of unmanned helicopter, 2002 CERP Company and the invention of a JAXA multi-purpose civilian UAV , beginning in 2003, it took 3 years, the Gifu Industrial Association has developed 4 generation UAV products, mainly used in forest fire prevention, earthquake disaster assessment and other fields;
NASA has led the World class drone Application Center: NASA set up a world-class UAV Application Center in 2003 to specialize in commercial applications with high-resolution camera sensor drones.

In recent years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has used drones to track tropical storm data to improve the hurricane warning model. When forest fires raged in 2007, NASA used "Ikhana" drones to assess the severity of the blaze, as well as the estimated damage to the disaster. The 2011 Gulf of Mexico drilling rig explosion after the Allen Laboratory Company's unmanned aerial vehicle to assist oil spill monitoring and oil spill treatment.

Israel has also set up a pilot commission for civilian drones and their working models, giving the "Heron" UAV a non-military mission to carry out a certificate in 2008, and cooperating with the authorities in conducting pilot flights for a variety of civilian missions.

Europe's "civilian drone development roadmap", which was enacted and implemented in 2006, has been developed by the EU to provide a pan-European civilian drone coordination organization to help solve the most critical air safety and airworthiness problems.

China started early and has developed faster in recent years: in the 80 's, China's self-developed unmanned aerial vehicles (derived from military models) were tried in map mapping and geological prospecting. In recent years, for the civilian development of the amount of "central Guizhou" 1th unmanned aircraft and the successful maiden flight in 2010, 2011 you that domestic "bee" 28 unmanned aerial vehicles, can be fully autonomous take-off, landing, hover and route planning, can apply agricultural spraying, power patrol, disaster prevention and mapping, relay communications and so on.

For the civil field, UAV is only a flight platform, its function in the final analysis through the Airborne System task load equipment to complete.

and to B end of all walks of life in the field of rapid development of UAV compared to the last two years to C consumption end of the market, entertainment and other markets, benefiting from the technology of the UAV in all aspects of the mature and the cost of a sharp decline, is a burst of development. Shenzhen great Xinjiang was founded in 06, 10 only millions of revenue, 13 up to 800 million yuan, 14 nearly 3 billion yuan.

3, the maturity of the hardware industry chain, cost reduction for civilian & consumption UAV explosion conditions

The rise of the civil and consumer drone market in the last ten years and the maturity of the hardware industry chain, the cost curve continues to fall inseparable: With the rise of mobile terminals, chips, batteries, inertial sensors, communications chips and other industrial chain quickly mature, cost reduction, so that the intelligent process can be quickly to a more compact, low-power equipment forward. It also creates a good condition for the rapid innovation and cost reduction of the UAV's overall hardware:

Chip--At present, a high-performance FPGA chip can realize the function of dual CPU on UAV to meet the information fusion of navigation sensor and realize the optimal control of unmanned aerial vehicle. Inertial sensor-with Apple on the iphone using a large number of accelerometers, gyroscopes, geomagnetic sensors, and so on, the MEMS inertial sensor starting from the 2011 large-scale rise, 6-axis, 9-axis inertial sensors have gradually replaced a single sensor, the cost and power consumption further reduced, cost only a few dollars. In addition the GPS chip weighs only 0.3 grams, the price is less than 5 dollars. Wireless communications such as WiFi--wifi and other communication chips for the control and transmission of image information, communication speed and quality can fully meet the transmission needs of hundreds of meters. Battery-battery energy density increases, allowing the UAV to maintain a lighter weight, the endurance of 25-30 minutes to meet some of the basic application of the degree, in addition, solar cell technology allows High-altitude drones can continue to fly for a week or even longer. Cameras and so on-mobile terminals in recent years have also facilitated a sharp rise in the performance of lithium batteries, high pixel cameras and reduced costs.

4, the flight control system open source, unmanned aircraft fly into ordinary people's home

If the cost of hardware is lowered to solve the problem of the "body" of the drone, in recent years, the trend of open source of flight control system solves the problem of the UAV "brain", since the UAV is no longer the patent of military and scientific research institutions, the world's commercial enterprises and enthusiasts have joined the tide of UAV system design, is to detonate the civilian and consumer drone market "burst point."

Germany MK Company is the originator of the multi-rotor UAV system open source, and then the 2011 US APM Company opened unmanned aircraft design platform completely ignited the market for the development of unmanned aircraft system enthusiasm, after 2012 civilian and consumer drones into the accelerated uplink channel.

So far, the international UAV Industry has formed APM (most users), Germany MK (the earliest open source system), paparazzi (high stability, scalability), PX4 and MWC (strong compatibility), such as the five open source platform for unmanned aircraft.

Taking Ppz (paparazzi) as an example, the Ppz, which began in 2003, is a fully open source software and hardware system, which has now formed a complete set of mature solutions covering not only sensors, GPS, autopilot software, but also ground equipment, which can drive fixed-wing aircraft and also drive rotary-wing machines, and the ground control software can be used to monitor the flight satellite map. It can be said that the powerful open source flight control system has made the UAV fully into the "user friendly" era.

October 2014, the famous computer open source system company Linux launched the "Dronecode" of the UAV Open source system cooperation project, the robotics, Intel, Qualcomm, Baidu and other technology giants into the project team, designed to provide unmanned aircraft developers with the required resources, Tools and technical support to accelerate the development of UAVs and robotics. According to the Teal Aviation market research company, the Dronecode project will bring the world's unmanned aircraft development, testing and assessment activities to $91 billion trillion in the next decade. Dronecode development interface includes unmanned off-road vehicle, unmanned fixed-wing aircraft, unmanned helicopter and various multi-axis rotor drones, absorbing APM, PX4 and other platforms, further promoting the visualization and friendliness of system development.

5, UAV-related policies: national policies are in continuous improvement

China drone related policy: the first step out of standardization

Overall, 2009 years ago, drones were in a state of unregulated space. Since 2009 onwards, began to enter the licensing flight phase, but the laws and regulations and regulatory implementation has not been completed and formalized, the actual application operation is ambiguous.

American drone-related policy: commercial drone draft final

After a long wait, several postponements, February 15, 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration finally unveiled the Long-awaited draft management scheme for unmanned aircraft operators. The new rule has broken the previous blanket ban, but it has yet to be finalized.
This rule applies mainly to unmanned aircraft under the weight of 25 kilograms, the main restrictions include:

(1) Flight time, speed, speed, carrying restrictions: it limits the drone can only fly during the day, and the whole must be maintained in the operator's line of sight, flying height of not more than 150 meters, speed must not exceed 160 kilometers. Do not fly from the top of the head, do not throw things from the drone, the outer side of the body shall not hang the parcel.

(2) Flight Route location restrictions: Unmanned aerial vehicles must avoid flight routes and flight restrictions, must strictly comply with the relevant temporary limit flight orders. Unmanned aircraft should be avoided at least eight kilometres from the airport of manned aircraft. Unmanned aircraft should always remain within the horizon of the radio operator when flying.

(3) Driver qualification requirements: Unmanned aircraft operators at least 17 years old, to obtain the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority unmanned aircraft operator qualification certificate, and through the TSA (U.S. Transportation Safety Administration) review requirements.

(4) In addition, fans of the model drones are still as unrestricted as before, as long as they do not hinder air traffic.

British drone policy: the world's drone Code navigator

Cap 722 is the British Civil Aviation Authority's guidelines for drone use within British airspace, and the fourth edition of Cap 722, released in April 2010, has been adapted to the launch of Air Navigation Law 2009. All regulations on drones are now in the Air Navigation Act 2009. Prior to that, CAP 722 was a reference standard for the industry and was imitated by the world to learn and implement. The document highlights the safety requirements for airworthiness and operating standards that need to be noted before the operation of drones in the UK. The latest version of Cap 722 was released in August 2012, and a considerable degree of openness has been applied to civilian drones. The British Civil Aviation Authority is a leader in the field of UAV regulation.

European regulation 2008 NO. 216 oversees all unmanned aerial vehicles weighing more than 150 kg. UAV design and production must follow the same certification standards as conventional aircraft (the code is led by EUROUSC, which is authorized by the Civil Aviation Authority to implement the light drone program), and must obtain the airworthiness attestation or the quasi fly permission. In the UK, unmanned aerial vehicles weighing 20 kg to 150 kg require airworthiness qualifications under British law. If the aircraft is within a radius of 500 meters and less than 400 feet or in an isolated flight area, and the drone and the flight have a certain airworthiness guarantee, The United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority can exempt airworthiness certification requirements. The British Civil Aviation Authority will also issue exemptions based on its own investigation and recommendations, and only one organization currently has permission to do so. The UAV with a weight of less than 20 kg does not need to comply with a number of major policy requirements, but there are conditions set out in article 98th of the Pilotage Act. These conditions include the prohibition of flying near the control area or airfield, unless authorized by the air traffic authority, with a maximum height of 400 feet and a ban on high-altitude operations without the special permission of the British Civil Aviation Authority.

The current British Airways Act does not require a certified pilot's license to operate drones. But the British Civil Aviation Authority requires all potential drone operators to master flight credentials. Flight qualification can be obtained through the completion of a designated course, and four certification bodies operate training and exams.

Iv. Global Drone market

Pictured above is the Teal Group's forecast of the global drone market, which they expect will reach $11.5 billion trillion in 2023 years.

For military and civilian market share, Teal Group gave a more optimistic view of the civil market (about 9% of the annual composite growth rate of 1.5 billion trillion by 2023, of course, Teal Group in the report specifically mentions Google, High-tech giants such as Facebook and Amazon are potentially hard to quantify the disruptive changes in the civilian military drone industry.

We believe that the two bottlenecks that need to be breached in the global development of the civilian UAV market are airspace resources and security issues, once these two problems have been solved around the world, the imaginary space that human beings use to conquer airspace will be completely opened, and the global civilian UAV market may show an explosive growth.

1, civilian unmanned aerial vehicle: The downstream demand is extensive, enters the rapid development period

Civilian UAV downstream demand is very wide, including agriculture, power oil, inspection, forestry, meteorology, land and resources, police, Marine Water Conservancy, mapping, urban planning and other industries. In recent years, the application of UAV in the civil market has received more and more attention, such as agriculture and forestry plant protection and power patrol line two areas, unmanned aircraft demand is more urgent, and has a larger market size. We believe that the potential demand of other industries will also gradually appear, China's civil UAV market space is huge, will enter a rapid development period.

Agricultural plant protection: the largest market for civilian unmanned aerial vehicles, agricultural plant protection market scale of more than billion

Japanese plant protection drones have been used for more than 20 years, the current annual update volume of about 3000. We are based on the use of pesticides in China and Japan to calculate, if the current Japanese plant protection UAV penetration rate and frequency of use, the annual update of about 30,000, plant protection of unmanned aircraft prices by 500,000 yuan/frame, the annual market size can reach 15 billion yuan.

Power Patrol: The policy is expected to be issued, market size is 1 billion

January 2009, the State Grid company formally developed unmanned helicopter patrol system.

March 2013, the state Grid company issued the "National Grid company transmission line helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and artificial cooperative patrol mode pilot work program." The programme states that the establishment of helicopters, the new patrol mode of unmanned aerial vehicle and manual patrol is the urgent need of strong smart grid development, now the company system helicopter patrol operation is gradually to the standardization, institutionalization direction, for this company selected Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi, Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Fujian, Liaoning, As a pilot unit, 10 overhaul companies in Qinghai province used 2-3 years to carry out the pilot work of new patrol mode. By 2015, the National Network company will fully promote the helicopter, unmanned aerial vehicles and manual patrol coordinated transmission line new patrol mode.

In June 2014, the Standardization Center of China Power Enterprise Federation issued a draft of the electric power industry standard, called "Overhead transmission Line UAV Patrol Technology Guide", for public consultation. We expect the Power Federation's drone industry standards to be officially unveiled this year.

China's 110kV and above high-voltage power lines of about 52 kilometers, according to the annual inspection times 30 times, the annual total patrol length of about 15.6 million kilometers. Unmanned aircraft patrol 20 kilometers per hour, single year flight time according to 150 hours, the country needs 5,200. According to 200,000 RMB per frame, the annual market space is about 1.04 billion yuan.

Forest fire prevention: urgent need, the initial stage

China has a forest area of 175 million hectares, forest volume of 12.456 billion cubic meters, forest coverage of 18.21%, is not only a large forest resources, but also forest fires in many countries.

At present, more and more new technologies and equipments have been applied in the forest fire prevention abroad, the application demand in this area has been increasing, the investment in forest protection has increased gradually, and the use of satellite has been used to survey the resources and to monitor the forest fires.

Inspection disaster: the needs of national conditions, vast space

The Wenchuan earthquake of 2008 caused a lot of secondary geologic disasters, such as collapse, landslide, debris flow, lake and so on, which caused serious damage to most national road, provincial Road and village road, which caused difficult to imagine the relief work. Due to the influence of weather factors, it is difficult for satellite remote sensing system or manned aerial remote sensing system to obtain real-time ground image in the disaster area in time. After the earthquake, many kinds of UAV aerial remote sensing systems have been used in the disaster area, such as disaster investigation, landslide dynamic monitoring, housing and road damage assessment, disaster relief effect evaluation, rehabilitation and reconstruction, and so on, which have achieved good results and have played an irreplaceable role in other means. The first large-scale unmanned aerial remote sensing system has been successfully used in emergency response.

In the 2013 Yaan earthquake Search and rescue process, the national earthquake Disaster emergency Rescue Team uses the rotary Wing unmanned aerial vehicle to carry on the aerial investigation to the disaster area topography, the damage condition, has provided the reference and the basis for the national earthquake Disaster emergency Rescue team's search and rescue work. The UAV was jointly developed by the National earthquake disaster Emergency team and the Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and applied in the process of earthquake search and rescue, with a precision of 0.1 meters and a continuous flight of 100 kilometers at 200 meters low altitude.

China's natural disasters occur frequently, the annual disaster caused by huge losses. In order to improve the efficiency and quality of disaster relief, timely and accurate disaster information must be provided. The conventional disaster monitoring method has a long cycle and high cost, which is difficult to meet the needs of emergency response. UAV Aerial remote Sensing system, as a supplementary means of satellite remote sensing and manned aerial remote sensing, has the advantages of strong real-time, flexible, small environmental impact and low cost, and has broad development space and application prospect in disaster emergency rescue.

2, the consumer-level unmanned aerial vehicle market heats up rapidly

This year, the global UAV market ushered in widespread concern, the frontier innovation products to the front, the domestic flying technology, zero-intelligence and foreign 3D robotics and other unmanned aircraft company products and financing movements, 2015 can be said to be the first year of consumer-level unmanned aircraft.

Xinjiang innovation is the world's leading small unmanned aircraft manufacturers, accounting for about 50% of the global civilian small unmanned aircraft market share, the company 80% of the products are sold abroad. The Invisible World class drone company that Silicon Valley thinks can be compared to Apple. The company was founded in 2006, initially from the controller installed in the UAV into, and then found unmanned aerial Vehicle flight market access point, to do the whole machine and stable flight platform, as well as high-definition digital video transmission module, and now dedicated to provide a complete flight imaging strategy. In just a few years, the growth of thousands of thousand, 2013-year income reached 800 million yuan, by the United States "Times" magazine as the 2014 ten innovative tools of the world's third.

The DJI drones are widely used in aerial photography and are enjoyed by professional and amateur photographers. Its product line covers the midrange price of Phantom (Big Elf) and high-end market absolute king of the Inspire ("WU") series. Including the hit TV show "Dad, where to go," as well as the Shield Bureau agents, Homeland Security, such as the aerial footage of the popular American drama. It is also used by users to panoramic scans of Rio de Janeiro Christ like, close to filming whale breathing, and a leap in the eruption of the Issours volcano.

In addition to the Xinjiang innovation, in recent years domestic and foreign technology companies to the drone attention is also rapidly warming, unmanned aircraft is not only the "toy", but also subversion of the future of the robot: Amazon's Prime Air Man Machine Logistics program has entered the 9th generation of research and development Google acquired Titanaerospace, a drone company that provides network coverage, and Facebook has acquired $50 million trillion in ascenta;3d robotics drone, a British drone company, for $20 million; Matternet The construction of an unmanned aerial vehicle network to transport food and medical supplies to remote rural areas around the world.

The domestic UAV market is also gradually emerging, the birth of a similar science and technology, zero-intelligence control, flying technology, a power technology, billion air unmanned aircraft, Tianxiang unmanned aircraft and so on. January 20, 2015 Rapoo Technology and zero-level intelligence jointly set up a joint venture, research and development of unmanned aerial vehicles, the two sides released on February 1, 2015 zero consumption-class four rotary wing UAV series products, in Shenzhen, zero official website and some of the electric business platform began pre-sale, the price of 3199 yuan.

At present, unmanned aerial vehicles are mainly used in aerial filming and other industries, including border control, agriculture, etc., for example, the main innovation is mainly used for aerial shoot, flying technology for various major industry applications. In addition, search and rescue, anti-theft security monitoring applications are also starting. Unmanned aerial vehicles for logistics attempts are also more and more, Amazon research and development for many years, domestic courier industry also began to test water.

Google hot air balloon Project Whye, ready to build a stratospheric balloon network around the world, and then acquired Titan Aerospace to provide solar powered drones, both of which can provide low-cost, Internet access across the planet.

NASA is also developing the drone "Low-altitude Traffic management System", which is expected to be used in agriculture in 2015. Skycatch, a maker of unmanned aerial vehicles, which collects data on construction, mining, solar and agriculture, has received 13.2 million of billions of dollars in funding. Other innovative applications include bee size drones that pollinate flowers and so on.

GoPro also joined the "Small Drone alliance" last year, and has launched video camera equipment for a variety of drones, and GoPro has announced it will enter the consumer-class drone sector, and is expected to launch the first multi-motor-driven drone this year, priced between 500 and 1000 dollars. The frontier has also announced that it will use its own-developed cameras in future drone products. The combination of UAV and motion camera will be an important application of UAV in the field of sports health and other personalized aerial photography, such as Stella's stable PTZ designed for GoPro Hero 3 series camera.

UAV with Oculus Rift use, can obtain virtual reality, augmented reality experience. For example, Parrot introduced wireless control accessories Skycontroller, with HDMI interface connected to the Oculus Rift, can directly control the flight of the aircraft, using up and down the keys, controlling the trajectory of the aircraft. By means of "connection", people's perception is brought to another real space. Such experiences may also be applied in tunnels, canyons and underwater scenes, and explorers will no longer need to be experienced to reap the stimulating sensory experience. More importantly, he does not need to expend human resources to model, create a virtual world, any place can become a new playground.

According to the Xinjiang innovation last year about 3 billion of the revenue scale and thousands of to tens of thousands of yuan pricing, unmanned aircraft shipments also on hundreds of thousands of units, the future growth of space is enormous. According to Teal Group statistics, 2014 global civilian UAV market size has reached 2.8 billion U.S. dollars, the next 10 years will also achieve unprecedented sustained growth, market size will double growth.

Five, the future, unmanned function for us to do?

In addition to the military, commercial and consumer functions we have already known, the future of "Heaven" drones can be a tremendous surprise to our lives. Without the crowding and restrictions of the ground at a distance of 300 meters, future drones will not only be able to play the role of Super Courier and Super Police, but also provide low-cost, highly maneuverable wireless network coverage for the ground. Imagine the drone as a "flying sensor", an aerial data port for 4.0 of the industry, large to geophysical, meteorological, agricultural data, small to personal location information, and drones that will detonate a big data revolution in the air!

1, Industry 4.0 air data Port!

We believe that, as a "flying sensor," the future of unmanned aerial vehicles in the civil field of the most imaginative space applications may be as a data port in the air, to connect the global Industrial 4.0 "large data" system to provide more accurate, more powerful data flow.

From the most common patrol function of UAV, the use of drones to patrol farmland across the country can be more clearly observed than satellite imagery of crop growth, natural disasters, soil changes, and the fact that drones are connected to the global Internet through data links, which allow real-time transmission of collected data to commodity analysts, Used to judge global crop futures market trends; in future precision farming systems, small drones can be used to monitor crop shortages and feed information back to irrigation systems to regulate water.

In terms of access to personal information data, drones can simulate WiFi hotspots, sniff the MAC address of mobile devices, and triangulate the device based on the intensity of the signal, and gather the information to draw the user's movement map, showing the neighborhoods, stores, and so on that he would normally pass by. And then conditionally to filter the user, such as to "over its door and not into" the potential consumer push preferential promotional information. By tracking the track of individual movement, we can grasp the life habit of the crowd more comprehensively, and provide more accurate reference data for the manufacturer. In addition, in emergency situations, mobile devices can be positioned to save lives. Drones judge the location of stranded people by using Wi-Fi signals from their stranded mobile phones.

This technology and shopping malls, supermarkets commonly used indoor mobile device positioning technology, such as ibeacon have a bit similar places, can be pushed through the user to push promotional information. The difference is that drones are more flexible and can locate users in more complex geographical conditions.

2, technology giant's next stop: to provide flexible, low-cost WiFi network access

With nearly 4 billion of the world's population still not connected to the Internet, how to solve the problem of Internet access, such as WiFi deployment, has become one of the top ten solutions to human problems. But the UAV energy consumption is low, but the flight time is longer, may provide the Internet access service for the larger scope user. At the same time, UAV is highly mobile and can provide Internet access services according to the special needs of a certain region.

Google buys Titan and uses drones to grab the Internet coverage: In April 2014, Titan Aerospace, a drone company, was acquired. Titan Aerospace was founded in 2012, and its drones are trying to replace high-cost near-earth satellites. It has been successfully developed and has begun testing drones Solara 50 and 60, which can be added to the solar energy and continue to sail in near-Earth orbit for five years without landing. Solara UAV 50 meters wide, can carry 32kg, the speed reached 104km/h,titan said that through special equipment, its high altitude unmanned aerial vehicle can provide up to 1 GB of network access service per second.

Titan Aerospace is said to be working with Google's two projects after the acquisition, one of which is Project Whye, which provides Internet services via an upper-helium balloon, and Google plans to spend $1 billion on satellite internet coverage. Helium balloons, unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite three-pronged, coupled with the city's advanced cable fiber access to Google Fiber, can be seen Google's attention to the Internet portal.

However, wired access is to provide better service in already covered areas, while the first three kinds of wireless access methods mainly address the coverage problem. But drone technology may be more advantageous than helium balloons, because the Titan Aerospace unmanned aerial vehicle uses the solar energy to provide the power, the endurance can be up to one year, but the Helium balloon deployment cost is too high, the maintenance difficulty is also relatively high; In addition, the drone's flight altitude is higher than the commercial plane's altitude, Also lower than the height of the satellite, allowing it to provide stable 1Gbps high-speed access. So in the future, Google's drones may provide high-capacity services in small areas, while satellites will be used to ensure coverage of low rates of demand.

Facebook uses drones to cover remote areas for the next 1 billion users

Facebook set up Connectivity Lab, whose mission is to develop its own Internet connection technologies, including satellites and drones. Facebook has acquired 20 million dollars for another drone manufacturer, Ascenta, that offers similar technology. Ascenta solar drones can fly at 20km high altitude for a period of 1 months. Facebook has been involved in drones primarily to provide Internet services. Provide network services available to residents in remote areas to try to win the next 1 billion users.

3, will fly delivery courier

UAV delivery service The most famous is Amazon's Prime Air drone logistics program, at the end of 2013, Amazon announced a 8-wing unmanned aircraft called Prime Air, capable of transporting a five-pound courier. Amazon is still committed to shopping, giving users endless choices, lowest prices, and instant delivery that will be realized in the future. Now, Amazon's Prime Air has been iterated into the nineth generation, weighing up to 5 pounds of cargo, which covers 86% of the category while being able to fly at speeds exceeding 50 mph. A larger range of outdoor flight tests have been formally applied to the FAA. In addition, Google, UPS and other since 2012-2013 began testing unmanned aircraft delivery.

With the introduction of thousands of-yuan high-performance unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Xinjiang, the UAV Express can greatly reduce the "last 10 kilometers" logistics cost:

Energy consumption of less than 0.1 yuan per order-with a load of 2 kg, package 10km range of direct hardware costs (mainly energy consumption) less than 0.1 yuan, each single power consumption of 10Ah, less than 40Wh, power consumption of about 0.03 yuan; the cost of unmanned aerial vehicles--a 5000-yuan unmanned aerial vehicle, a 5-year operating life, Plus 20% maintenance costs per year, about 6000 yuan, 4 yuan/day, if each UAV completed 10 tasks a day, which means that each package amortization cost of 0.4 yuan; Total cost of less than 0.5 yuan per single, compared to the current cost of artificial logistics has been significantly reduced, so from the economic cost, the UAV delivery has obvious economic benefits.

The most difficult part of UAV logistics is the final stage of cargo delivery, and it is far from enough to know the GPS coordinates of the destination. The current approach of the Australian Clinton and Grant is to install cameras on drones and a large box on the user's balcony with a specific logo, which is identified by machine vision and delivered accurately to the user's balcony.

In addition, regulations remain the biggest obstacle. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently unveiled a draft new law on drone management
In the FAA's proposed new rules, drones must be in the eye of the operator. The main limitation is that commercial drones are used for photography, reconnaissance lines, search and rescue, and monitoring crops, which is not good for UAV logistics services.

4, the personal security of the Air Guardian

UAV has the logistics of delivery, monitoring information, aerial photography and other functions, then can record the birth of our daily lives of the UAV is also within reach? Perhaps in the near future will become a reality, the Shanghai Airmind Company developed the "Mind4" four-rotor UAV was awarded the "tracker drone" title, because it has to track a designated person or target and shoot the function.

The concept of ' Mind4 ' is designed to record our lives, even the recording of Non-human beings. The "Mind4" is equipped with a camera that can cover 20 meters away from a specified object. With its automatic navigation function, "MIND4" tracking the selected target can reach the maximum height of 20 meters, the farthest distance up to 50 meters. It can also be controlled by gestures.

The four-rotor drones equipped with built-in cameras are now widely available, but most drones still need remote control. GPS based tracking technology does not guarantee the accuracy of the object's position (i.e., the location where the camera is pointing), because civilian GPS is often inaccurate.

Given the rapid development of civilian drone products over the years, it may not be surprising that products such as "Mind4" were born. Future, more sophisticated drones that can track and target designated targets can be fully monitored and protected for personal security. Think about it: in the future, when your child goes to school or play, an unmanned aircraft fleet will keep track of the danger and keep him safe.