“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”, August 23 (Reporter Qiu Siyu) In recent years, the low-altitude economy has shown an explosive growth trend in China. According to the latest data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, in the first half of this year, the number of newly registered drones in China was nearly 0.608 million, an increase of 48% over the previous year, and the cumulative number of flight hours reached 9.816 million hours.

Recently, the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter participated in the Shanghai Low Altitude Economy and Industry Research Group organized by the Shanghai Municipal Economic and Information Technology Commission and the Information Office of the Shanghai Municipal Government to visit the Shanghai Petrochemical Carbon Fiber Center, Fengyu Shuntu, East China drone base, and Yufeng Future.

Drones have realized the cold chain of goods and transportation of medicines

“The Fengzhou 90 drone can sail 120 kilometers when carrying 10 kg of cargo.” Sun Biao, head of Fengyu Shuntu Shanghai, mentioned to the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter, “The company participated in the construction of the Shanghai Jinshan Civil Unmanned Aeronautical Pilot Zone and set up a drone logistics island scenario between Shanghai and Zhoushan. In the future, it will provide efficient and convenient express delivery and fresh cold chain transportation services for Shanghai citizens.”

As shown in the image above, the drone brought back goods such as seafood from Zhoushan and rhubarb from Taohua Island after passing the sea flight demonstration.

Fengyu Shuntu is an enterprise under SF Express that focuses on the construction of low-altitude smart networks. The logistics drones developed by the company have a load capacity of 10 kg to 50 kg and a range of 10 km to 130 km, covering various models such as multi-rotors and vertical take-off and landing fixed wings. In January of this year, Fengyu Shuntu obtained the country's first “Civil Unmanned Aircraft Operation Certificate”.

As of June 30, 2024, Fengyi drones have opened more than 400 routes across the country, flew nearly 1 million flights, transported more than 4.2 million pieces of cargo, and a total flight range of nearly 5 million kilometers.

Just in May of this year, Fengyu completed the first flight verification from the East China drone base to Longhua Airport. “Currently, the Fengzhou 90 drone has achieved normal operation of 10 flights per day and 50 flights per week, for fresh cold chain transportation between the Zhoushan Islands and Jinshan in Shanghai.” Sun Biao, head of Fengyu Shuntu in Shanghai, told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter.

In addition to delivering goods such as seafood, drone delivery of medicine, luggage, and documents is just around the corner. Sun Biao revealed that in July of this year, Fengyu Shuntu launched Shanghai's first cross-river drone drug delivery route, which can quickly transport blood products and emergency medicines across the river. The entire route is 8 kilometers long, and it only takes a few minutes for the drone to deliver medicine.

The pace of commercialization of the low-altitude economy is accelerating

Scenes such as drone delivery of medicine and seafood described above are one of the main application directions in the low-altitude economy.

Low-altitude economy refers to a comprehensive economic format with a vertical height of less than 1,000 meters, extending to an airspace of 3,000 meters as needed, using low-altitude aircraft as carriers, and multi-scenario low-altitude flight activities such as manning, cargo, and other operations to drive integrated development in related fields.

Drones are widely used in logistics, agriculture, surveying and mapping, etc., and have significantly improved industry efficiency. With the continuous advancement of technology and the continuous optimization of the policy environment, the low-altitude economy is ushering in unprecedented development opportunities.

In July of this year, the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal Government issued the “Shanghai Low-Altitude Economy Industry High-Quality Development Action Plan (2024-2027)”. It is proposed that by 2027, Shanghai will establish a complete industrial system for R&D and design, assembly manufacturing, airworthiness testing, and commercial application of new low-altitude aircraft to create a highland of innovation in the low-altitude economy industry, a highland of commercial application, and a highland of operation services, with a core industry scale of more than 50 billion yuan.

The “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter learned from the Shanghai Economic and Information Technology Commission that Shanghai has 70% of the country's civil aviation system professionals, has gathered about 50% of the country's leading eVTOL innovators, and has been approved as the country's first batch of civil unmanned aerial pilot zones, Jinshan “sea-shore-city” scenario logistics transportation, Yangpu city low-altitude smart logistics distribution, Xuhui riverside drone cluster performance, and low-altitude passenger operation in the Yangtze River Delta region.

In this investigation, the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter also visited the East China drone base. Xu Jinmei, deputy general manager of Shanghai Xinjinshan Century Aviation Development Co., Ltd., and deputy general manager of Shanghai Aerospace Pilot Startup Incubator Company, mentioned to the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter that the East China drone base has 1,370 square kilometers of airspace and has been approved for 8 drone logistics routes, including Jinshan-Zhoushan, Jinshan-Shengsi Island, and Jinshan-Longhua Airport, as well as a 1 square kilometer land test take-off and landing site.

At present, the East China drone base has introduced a total of about 38 enterprises in the drone industry chain covering manufacturing, applications, materials, etc., with a total planned investment of 3.33 billion yuan.

Carbon fiber becomes the “skeleton” of a drone

“Carbon fiber is suitable for drone construction. Its strength is 7 times that of ordinary steel, but the weight is only 1/7 to 1/9 of steel, which can meet the lightness, miniaturization and high stability of drones.” Li Peng, general manager of the carbon fiber division of Shanghai Petrochemical, told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter.

According to reports, carbon fiber composites have excellent properties such as light weight, high strength, high stiffness, fatigue resistance, and low thermal expansion coefficient. At present, countries around the world are making extensive use of advanced composites, mainly carbon fiber composites, in drones, which account for 60% to 80% of the total mass fraction of the structure, reducing the mass of the aircraft by more than 25%.

In this investigation, Yue Tingting, vice president of Yufeng Future, told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter that the company's eVTOL aircraft used domestically produced carbon fiber composites.

Shanghai Petrochemical is a holding subsidiary of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation. It is an important domestic carbon fiber industry base and the first domestic enterprise to break through 48K large wire bundle carbon fiber industrialization technology.

The “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter also learned during the investigation that in the construction of the small wire bundle carbon fiber project, Shanghai Petrochemical uses a self-developed domestic sodium thiocyanate wet process and complete carbon fiber technology with independent intellectual property rights; in the construction of the large wire bundle carbon fiber project, it independently develops a dedicated production line tailored from equipment to process, and independently develops DCS control technology for the whole process to achieve automated operation at the top of the original wire.

At present, Shanghai Petrochemical Carbon Fiber has formed a production capacity of 1,500 tons/year for small wire bundle carbon fiber and 6000 tons/year for large wire bundle carbon fiber. “We are starting to expand production capacity. The first phase of investment is expected to generate 6,000 tons of carbon fiber production capacity, and the second phase will have another 6,000 tons of carbon fiber production capacity.” Li Peng, general manager of the carbon fiber division of Shanghai Petrochemical, revealed.

In recent years, with the development of domestic carbon fiber and its composite materials, its fiber production cost is lower, the processing efficiency of composite products is higher, and its economic advantages have become more and more prominent. Li Peng said that the economic benefits brought by drones to achieve commercial mass production of carbon fiber composite bodies or components are expected to drive the further development of China's low-altitude economy industry.