Explosion Of Industrial UAV Application: Increasing Demand For Heavy Load And Approaching Air Traffic

Compared with consumer class UAVs, which mainly focus on life and entertainment scenes, the industrial UAV market with more abundant and huge use scenarios has quietly risen.

According to Frost & Sullivan, a third-party organization, the compound annual growth rate of global consumption of UAVs will decline from 24.09% in 2015-2019 to 20.00% in 2024; During the same period, industrial UAVs will maintain a high growth rate, from 50.62% in 2015-2019 to 56.43%.

The agency pointed out that with the continuous expansion of application scenarios, the global industrial UAV has achieved rapid development, and it is estimated that the industrial UAV market will surpass the consumer class UAV market for the first time in 2020 and become the main market of global civil UAV.

In this context, the demand for scenarios including agricultural plant protection and emergency material transportation is gradually breaking out. Behind this is the acceleration of research and development of heavy-duty UAVs, and the future urban air traffic scenarios are also highly anticipated.

During the recent world UAV conference, Xie Jia, vice president of Fengfei aviation science and technology, told the 21st century economic reporter that, especially in the post epidemic era, with the promotion of non-contact commerce and the rigid demand for emergency material transportation, the market of vertical takeoff and landing fixed wing UAV with large load capacity is gradually developed.

Increasing demand for heavy load

It is understood that evtol (electric vertical takeoff and landing) technology is considered to be one of the most important technological changes in the aviation industry since the birth of helicopters because of the advantages of unmanned driving, large load and long endurance, green environmental protection and no need to build large airports and taxiways.

Dongfang Securities pointed out in the research report that today's market has put forward higher requirements for UAVs in hover time, cruise speed, range and take-off and landing site, while multi rotor, helicopter and fixed wing UAVs can not meet this multi-directional demand at the same time.

Specifically, the multi rotor UAV is subject to short endurance time and range; The cost of unmanned helicopter is more expensive, and the flight control is difficult; Fixed wing UAV has higher requirements for takeoff and landing site, and generally requires runway. Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has attracted much attention in the market because of its excellent hovering ability, long cruise speed and range.

The mechanism points out that the improved design, combined with the advantages of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft and fixed wing aircraft, adopts the vertical take-off and landing fixed wing configuration with multiple rotors and fixed wings, which can improve the aerodynamic efficiency, range and safety of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Xie Jia also told reporters that there are many occasions in the world that need air operations to complete tasks, such as transportation of emergency materials. But in the past, due to the traditional aircraft needs various facilities to match, and the helicopter has high cost and other problems, these have not been able to achieve very well“ Now, with the vertical take-off and landing configuration of large fixed wing heavy-duty UAVs, changes can be made. "

He pointed out that the characteristics of VTOL fixed wing UAV include that it does not need airport and runway, so its flight range is relatively free; Compared with the helicopter, the maintenance and operation cost is lower, and there is no complex structure, which greatly improves the safety and reliability of such products.

"There didn't seem to be such a demand before because the level of technology has not yet been reached." Xie Jia pointed out to reporters that the application of Fengfei aviation science and technology is mainly in the scene of urgent material transportation demand. At these times, the requirements for urgency and timeliness are higher than the consideration of cost. It will be a good tool to replace helicopters, and it is not the positioning of logistics companies in the development of transport UAVs.

"This kind of UAV is more stable, reliable and repeatable than helicopter in these scenarios, and its cost is relatively lower, so it will have relatively better practicability." He continued.

Towards the vision of air traffic

For the vast majority of heavy-duty UAV manufacturers, to manned will be one of the long-term development goals in the future. Overseas, this type of manufacturer has gained a lot of attention from capital.

According to Frost & Sullivan's forecast, the vertical takeoff and landing fixed wing market scale will increase 10 times in five years, from 1.231 billion yuan in 2019 to 12.426 billion yuan in 2024. In the same period, the multi rotor market scale only increased by 3.6 times, increasing from 6.406 billion yuan in 2019 to 23.310 billion yuan in 2024, and the market share decreased by 17.65%.

Among them, the new application scenario urban air traffic (UAM) that evtol is opening will accelerate to commercialization with the help of capital.

Xie Jia told the 21st century economic reporter that in the process of not realizing air traffic at present, the major material transportation meeting is the core application scenario, and it also plays the role of precipitation follow-up capacity“ There is a great demand for loading scenarios, so this is the core of the company's business at this stage. In the process of loading, products are continuously iterated, and then the platform capability is more mature and guaranteed, so as to better transition to the manned phase. "

According to the analysis of Orient Securities, the commercialization of evtol will go through seven stages: design, announcement, verification test, full-scale test, manned test, production and commercialization promotion. At present, foreign manufacturers, such as Airbus, Boeing and other large companies, as well as lithium, volocoper, Kitty Hawk and other emerging enterprises, are building their own electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for urban air traffic.

During the UAV conference, Fengfei aviation technology demonstrated the v1000cg concept aircraft of large logistics vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. The maximum take-off weight is 1000 kg, the maximum load is 300 kg, the maximum range of pure electric version is 250 km, and that of hybrid version is 1000 km. Xie Jia pointed out that the prototype of this model has been developed and started production.

After the outbreak of new coronal pneumonia, the popularity of non-contact commerce makes the use demand of industrial UAV constantly superimposed. Xie Jia told reporters that the company's potential orders increased during this period. At present, more attention is paid to the UAV products with larger load, especially those with more than 1t takeoff weight.

"The greater the load, the more advantageous this configuration will be. Of course, the technology will need to be continuously improved, but the biggest difficulty at present is not the technology itself, but the openness of airspace. " Xie Jiaxu said that as air management is a very new work, its gradual opening up needs a process.

"The biggest advantage of our country is the vertical industry integration, that is, the core technical capabilities including motor and electronic control are all from China, while many foreign manufacturers have adopted the outsourcing method, which undoubtedly increases many procurement costs." He continued.

However, it should be pointed out that air traffic is a vision that can be expected, but its positioning is different from the daily travel in our life.

Xie Jia explained to reporters that air travel is completely different from consumer grade UAVs, which will not become the main mode of travel, but will be a good supplement to ground transportation. For example, it takes several hours to get from a city's airport to the center of the city by public transport, but flying in the air can take only 10 minutes.

"This is a huge market. With the maturity of follow-up technology, people who are not too sensitive to capital but are anxious to travel will be the main demand." He said.

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