Low-altitude Economy: Industrial Transformation Driven by Innovation | OpenTalk Review
Low-altitude Economy: Industrial Transformation Driven by Innovation
On December 18, 2024, 36Kr held the "Low-altitude Economy: Industrial Transformation Driven by Innovation" OpenTalk live sharing event. The live broadcast specially invited Yan Feng, Professor at the Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Deputy Director of the Aircraft Power Engineering Department, and Director of the Low-altitude Aircraft Airworthiness Verification Engineering Technology Center, Peng Yanping, Founder, Chairman and General Manager of Times Starlight, and Zhang Ke, Technical Advisor for the Asia-Pacific Region of Dassault Systèmes Cloud Platform. The three guests discussed multiple elements such as safety and airworthiness, airspace reform, UAV technological innovation, control platforms, and digital solutions, and conducted on-site Q&A interactions with the audience.
Regarding how to establish new rules and management models to meet the growing demand of low-altitude users and diverse vehicle methods; how to strengthen infrastructure construction and services to provide comprehensive safety guarantees for low-altitude flights; how to accelerate the research and development and industrialization process of key technologies to ensure that the low-altitude economy takes the lead in the wave of technological innovation and realizes industrial transformation and upgrading. What insights do the three guests have? What first-hand industry insights, technologies, and practical experience in products will they share? The following is the summary of the highlights of this live broadcast. Welcome to read, share, and collect:
01 Yan Feng, Professor at the Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Deputy Director of the Aircraft Power Engineering Department, and Director of the Low-altitude Aircraft Airworthiness Verification Engineering Technology Center: Safety Design and Airworthiness Certification Technology for New Low-altitude Equipment
Yan Feng: Professor at the Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Director of the Low-altitude Aircraft Airworthiness Verification Engineering Technology Center, Deputy Director of the Power Engineering Department, and Master's Supervisor. Mainly engaged in teaching, scientific research, and engineering practice in the fields of civil aviation engineering analysis and technical management, safety and system engineering, aircraft airworthiness certification and flight test technology, and aviation industry economy. He has published 4 textbooks, 4 monographs, more than 50 papers, completed more than 50 scientific research projects, and authorized 5 invention patents. Participated in the compilation of the 14th Five-Year Science and Technology Development Plan of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (Airworthiness Group), and participated in the compilation of the strategic research plan for the medium and long-term science and technology planning of civil aviation facing 2035; Member of the textbook editing and question bank expert group for helicopter pilot licenses and aircraft maintenance licenses of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, member of the expert database of the Sichuan Provincial Science and Technology Department, member of the expert database of the Chongqing Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, member of the expert database of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Science and Technology Department, member of the expert database of the Heilongjiang Provincial Science and Technology Department, member of the Urban Air Traffic Committee of the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics, judge of the National Vocational Skills Competition (Aviation), member of the Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics, holds a CCAR-61 single-engine fixed-wing student private pilot license, a CCAR-66 civil aircraft maintenance personnel license, and model certificates for multiple aircraft (including fixed-wing and helicopters) and aeroengines (including turbofan and piston). He is one of the first batch of airworthiness certification flight test engineers trained by the Civil Aviation Administration of China and serves as a development strategy consultant for many enterprises.
Sharing keywords: #Low-altitude Economy #Safety and Airworthiness #Airspace Reform
Yan Feng, Professor at the Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Deputy Director of the Aircraft Power Engineering Department, and Director of the Low-altitude Aircraft Airworthiness Verification Engineering Technology Center deeply analyzed the current problems faced by low-altitude safety through multiple cases, and pointed out the importance of the management system and technical standards, providing valuable insights and suggestions for the safe and healthy development of the low-altitude economy.
Overview of Airspace Pilot Projects: Yan Feng pointed out that air traffic management is a key link in the development of the low-altitude economy by analyzing recent social hot cases related to airspace. Air traffic management involves air traffic services, air traffic flow management, and airspace management. If the aircraft flies relatively high, far, or even to densely populated areas, and air traffic management services need to be provided, it will involve air traffic management. The national airspace is divided into controlled airspace and uncontrolled airspace. Controlled airspace refers to the space delineated to provide air traffic control services to aircraft flying under instrument flight rules and visual flight rules, and uncontrolled airspace refers to the space that does not provide air traffic control services to aircraft. In the future, the basic flight of aircraft will be mainly low-altitude visual flight, and instrument flight will not be applicable to low-altitude flight due to its high cost.
Brief History of Low-altitude Airspace Management Reform
Airworthiness Certification Technology: Yan Feng emphasized that airworthiness certification technology is crucial to ensuring the safety of aircraft. The safety requirements of aircraft are very high. For example, the safety level indicators proposed by EASA and FAA for low-altitude aircraft are relatively high, basically equivalent to the safety requirements of transport aviation. The Civil Aviation Administration of China also tends to adopt the safety standards of EASA and FAA for manned low-altitude aircraft, while the safety level for cargo-carrying is relatively lower than that for manned aircraft. Currently, aircraft weighing more than 250g should be included in the airworthiness management scope. Among them, aircraft weighing less than 25kg should be compulsorily certified according to national standards, and those weighing more than 25kg must undergo airworthiness certification.
Capacity Building of Airworthiness Verification Platform: Yan Feng pointed out that the key technology of airworthiness certification is the current key research direction of the low-altitude economy. Through the relevant policies recently issued by local governments in Shenzhen, Beijing, and other places, it is proposed that the forces of enterprises, universities and research institutes, the airworthiness department of the Civil Aviation Administration, and local governments should be combined to promote the construction of the industrial support capacity of the low-altitude economy from four directions: First, the development of advanced low-altitude aircraft, key systems, structures, materials, etc. (such as hybrid power, etc.); Second, low-altitude aviation emergency equipment and accident verification technology; Third, low-altitude aircraft parts, systems, structure detection technology, airworthiness certification and flight test technology; Fourth, research on airworthiness regulations and standards for low-altitude aircraft.
Finally, Yan Feng shared several projects participated by the Civil Aviation Flight University of China, including the C919 aircraft PMMEL project development, the reliability problem of cold start in high-altitude airports (start control rate technology), the ETOPS model design and compliance verification technology of domestic intercontinental wide-body passenger aircraft, and the formulation of aircraft certification and maintenance requirements (CMR) projects. The underlying technologies of these projects can also be applied to eVTOL. Yan Feng believes that with the strong support of the central and local governments, unmanned, intelligent, collaborative, and green technologies will be widely applied in the aviation and ground transportation fields in the future. The next five years will definitely be a period of vigorous development of the low-altitude economy, and it will reach a certain scale and market effect in 2030.
Yan Feng: Safety Design and Airworthiness Certification Technology for New Low-altitude Equipment
02 Peng Yanping, Founder, Chairman and General Manager of Times Starlight: Empowering the Low-altitude Economy with the Time Cloud UAV Control Platform
Peng Yanping: Founder, Chairman and General Manager of Chengdu Times Starlight Technology Co., Ltd. Standing Committee Member and Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, Member of the Rocket and Missile Professional Committee of the China Ordnance Society, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Civil Aviation Emergency Rescue Alliance. In 2003, he founded Times Starlight Technology, with dozens of invention patents. Leading the Times Starlight team, he has obtained more than 100 artificial intelligence and wireless communication patent technologies and successfully applied them to society. He is one of the top ten leading figures in the Chinese UAV industry, the pioneer of the low-altitude reconnaissance UAV system in China, and the pioneer of the air-ground integration AI command and control platform technology.
Sharing keywords: #Time Cloud #UAV #Control Platform #Low-altitude Economy
Peng Yanping, Founder, Chairman and General Manager of Times Starlight shared the three pain points of the current low-altitude safety development and the architecture and highlights of Times Starlight's landmark product, the "Time Cloud UAV Control Platform". Times Starlight focuses on the in-depth integration and development of UAVs, aircraft, communication command vehicles, satellite communications, and command centers, and deeply integrates wireless communication and artificial intelligence technologies to form and launch the unique air-ground-space integration AI command and control system.
Focus on UAV Research and Development Upgrade: Peng Yanping first introduced the development route of Times Starlight. The company has a history of 20 years since its establishment. In the first ten years of the company's establishment, its business mainly focused on the fields of wireless communication and image processing technology, dedicated to the research and development and market promotion of related products. The technical accumulation in this period laid a solid foundation for the company's subsequent transformation. Since 2015, Times Starlight has combined the technical advantages in the fields of wireless communication and image processing with artificial intelligence to layout the UAV industry and become a professional military-grade intelligent UAV manufacturer. This transformation marks the company's leap from the traditional communication field to the high-tech UAV industry. In the nearly ten years of development, Times Starlight has conducted in-depth research and exploration in the field of low-altitude UAVs and accumulated rich industry experience and technical strength.
Challenges of Low-altitude Safety Management: Peng Yanping believes that the low-altitude economy, as a key area of national strategic development, is rapidly emerging. With the wide application of low-altitude aircraft such as UAVs, the supervision and safety issues in the low-altitude airspace have become increasingly severe. Low-altitude traffic management has evolved from disorder to order and from single to comprehensive, generally showing the characteristics of a large number of UAVs and difficult supervision. Specifically, the main challenges can be summarized into the following three aspects: First, UAV Cluster Control: With the popularization of UAV applications, how to effectively manage and monitor a large number of UAV groups to ensure low-altitude safety has become an urgent problem to be solved. Second, Low-altitude Airspace Monitoring: Facing the continuous growth in the number and types of low-altitude aircraft, traditional supervision methods have been difficult to meet the demand for real-time and comprehensive monitoring of the low-altitude airspace. Third, Remote Real-time Supervision: Real-time supervision and control of the remote status and tasks of UAVs and their airports is a key link to ensure the flight safety of UAVs.
System Functions of the Time Cloud UAV Control Platform (Part)
Five Core Functions of UAV Command and Control: Peng Yanping further introduced the air-ground-space integration intelligent UAV command system developed by Times Starlight - the Time Cloud Integrated Control Cloud Management Platform. Through the information interaction between the server and UAVs, fixed airports, mobile airports and other equipment, the platform realizes the real-time monitoring of the status and video information of UAVs and airports by the remote command center, as well as the real-time acquisition of flight status and trajectory, thereby realizing remote command, scheduling and control. It has five core highlights: Command Network Cluster Control, which can incorporate thousands of UAVs, ground command vehicles and individual soldier terminals into the Time Cloud control platform to achieve cluster control; Real-time Video Remote Monitoring, integrating satellite networks, 4G/5G public networks and private networks to provide real-time video monitoring functions; Autonomous Operations to Release Human Resources, by planning UAV tasks and routes, and automating task execution to reduce manpower requirements; Remote Intervention Control to Ensure Task Safety, during task execution, human intervention in UAV operations can be performed, such as emergency stop, hover, photography, video recording or item delivery to deal with emergencies; Multi-level Organization Management to Ensure Data Security, using a multi-level decentralized management system to comprehensively manage the access rights of equipment and personnel to meet the needs of different organizations and authorities.
Finally, Peng Yanping pointed out that the current application scenarios of the Time Cloud UAV Control Platform mainly include daily inspections, inspections in remote areas, emergency rescue, etc., and can be used for the management of UAVs, intelligent UAV airports, vehicle-mounted airports, pods and other equipment to meet the needs of different industries. In the future, with the empowerment of the low-altitude economy in thousands of industries, Times Starlight will continue to deeply cultivate and continuously invest in research and development to bring more professional solutions and broader development space for the UAV industry application.
Peng Yanping: Empowering the Low-altitude Economy with the Time Cloud UAV Control Platform
03 Zhang Ke, Technical Advisor for the Asia-Pacific Region of Dassault Systèmes Cloud Platform: Dassault Systèmes Helps the New Quality Productivity of the Low-altitude Economy
Zhang Ke: Graduated with a master's degree from the City University of New York, USA. He has worked in the United States for 3 years and has been engaged in the engineering field for 7 years. He has rich practical experience in project management, digital design, multi-physics field simulation and digital manufacturing. He is always committed to providing excellent technical support to customers in the Asia-Pacific region and promoting the digital transformation and technological innovation of the industry. With rich experience in the automotive, aerospace and high-tech fields, Zhang Ke has accumulated solid knowledge and practice in the low-altitude economy field. This sharing will combine his deep accumulation in engineering technology and the low-altitude economy field to deeply analyze the application prospects and development trends of eVTOL in the Asia-Pacific region.
Sharing keywords: #Integrated Development Solution #Digital Construction Idea #Customer Case Sharing
Zhang Ke, Technical Advisor for the Asia-Pacific Region of Dassault Systèmes Cloud Platform first introduced the concept of the low-altitude economy and the industries it covers, including industry, agriculture, forestry, fishery, transportation, etc. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), as an important part of the low-altitude economy, uses Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing Aircraft (eVTOL) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) as carriers to realize manned or cargo air commuting. In the next ten years, the low-altitude economy is expected to reach a market scale of trillions of RMB. It is not only a strategic emerging industry direction for global competition, but also an important field for cultivating new quality productivity. However, there