Consumer-grade drone technology gradually matured UAVs began to transition to industry-level

R&D, entrepreneurship, frustration, transformation. The career development path of Zhang Lei, an intellectually controlled sales manager, is almost the epitome of China's drone industry from the outbreak to the cold and then to the transition.

Initially, Zhang Lei, a technical backgrounder, engaged in research and development in the zero-scale intelligence control of drones that are the main consumer-level (used for general mass aerial photography, entertainment). In 2013, consumer-grade drone technology gradually matured, and he turned to entrepreneurship. After a period of time, Zhang Lei’s team of three or four people was forced to disband and Zhang Lei reentered the enterprise to engage in research and development. In October 2016, he discovered the broad prospects of UAVs in the field of agricultural plant protection. Zhang Lei joined the flying intelligence control system that focuses on industry-class (for plant protection, inspection, security, etc.) drone intelligent flight control platform.

For two consecutive years, the growth rate of consumer-grade drones has slowed down, and capital is shifting from follow-through conceptual investment to value-oriented rational investment. Industrial-grade drones with higher commercial value were chosen by entrepreneurs.

However, the problem of scene adaptability, after-sale protection, battery life, and so on have limited the development of industrial-grade drones to some extent. According to industry analysts, industry drones have not yet laid a solid foundation in terms of technology and market. Although the prospects are promising, before the outbreak of commercial value, both companies and capitals need to go through time.

"Great Leap Forward"

The drone came into public view and appeared in variety shows such as “Where is Daddy?”. In February 2015, singer Wang Feng’s news on Zhang Ziyi’s birthday party using a drone to send a proposal for a diamond ring was even more attractive. The eyes of ordinary people.

Since 2015, as consumer-grade multi-rotor UAV technology has become more mature, its prices have also been “close to the people”, and a high-definition aerial drone can be purchased for around 3,000 yuan, with a maximum altitude of 500 meters.

Also this year, the rise of drones in Shenzhen drove the consumer-grade drone industry to an outbreak. For a time, the influx of people drove the capital into a frenzy. "As long as the "draft drone" is written on the business plan, whether you know the technology or the team, you can almost get the angel wheel." An industry insider described the investment boom.

According to the application area, civil drones include two major categories: consumer and industrial. Among them, the industry-level (also known as industrial or commercial) can be applied to many scenarios such as agricultural and forestry plant protection, power line inspection, oil pipeline inspection, logistics and express delivery, medical aid, etc., while the most current application scenario of consumer-grade drones is Everyone is more familiar with aerial photography and entertainment.

“From the beginning of 2014, I think the industry has run a bit too fast.” From research and development to entrepreneurship to sales, Zhang Lei, who almost drove the entire drone chain, responded to the industry more quickly than the market.

This wave of drones was even more manifested in the schools where technology originated. Zhang Hao, the director of operations of Beihang Capital, who was from Beihang, returned to his alma mater and found that he was waiting for half of the drones. ”

When Zhang Lei left zero intellectual control to start his own business, he built a team of three or four people, which is equivalent to a team where large companies go out to work. “Going out for almost six months and finding that this thing is not as simple as I imagined.” “At that time, I didn’t know anything about financing.” At the time, entrepreneurs like Zhang Lei were in no small minority.

Zhao Guocheng, the founder of Yiwate, the first unit of the new three-plate unmanned aerial vehicle, used “crazy” to describe the 2015 drone market.

The pace of capital entry into the drone market is also accelerating. According to the "Civil UAV Market Analysis Report," venture capital investment in drone manufacturers and drone application developers has exceeded twice as many as in 2014.

In this year, Dajiang completed a total of 75 million U.S. dollars of round B financing with a valuation of 8 to 10 billion U.S. dollars. According to media reports, Shenzhen, the fastest-growing market, has more than 300 drone companies in addition to Dajiang, with annual sales exceeding 20 billion yuan.

Li Da (a pseudonym), a market researcher of an unmanned aerial vehicle association, said to the Beijing News reporter, "In Shenzhen, one or two or 100 meters can find a factory that produces all parts of the drone."

Cold, differentiating

Changes occurred at the end of 2016. The continuous entry of a large number of low-cost, homogenous drones has made the market competition more stagnant, and a longer market return cycle has allowed capital's enthusiasm to gradually recede.

With the advent of the ceiling and Dajiang’s absolute leading position, the consumer-grade drone bubble burst. Start-up companies without core technology and capital blessings are suddenly exiting.

"At least nine of the 10 unmanned aerial vehicles on the market are from Dajiang. Other brands of drones can't be bought at all." In Zhang Lei's view, start-ups are simply unable to compete on the consumer-grade circuit.

For a time, it was still the industry leader, such as zero intelligence, who was involved in layoffs at the end of 2016. A few zero-old employees recalled that the company's layoffs from the wind and water are almost overnight.

At that time, Zhang Lei, who had been deeply plowing for drones for many years and was also a consumer zero-distribution dealer, said that since then zero has “retreated to the second line” and he has been deepening his core algorithm.

Also a star enterprise in the wave of consumerism, Yihang Airlines was exposed to a debt-collected photo in a circle of friends more than a month ago: The banner in front of the office building read “Guangzhou billion Airlines owes 19 loans. Not returned yet."

"The tactics are radical and continuously release new products", "there is no core technology", "it can't be transformed in time," and many insiders have summed up the crisis of Yihang Airlines.

In addition to internal concerns, there are also “external problems”. Since the second half of 2016, many “black-flying” threats to the aviation safety incident have brought a deeper shadow to the consumer drones.

In response to the unfavorable effects of the "black fly" of drones, the regulatory policy began to tighten - the Civil Aviation Department Flying Standards Division has issued the "Light and Small UAV Operation Regulations" and the "Utility of UAV Driver Management Regulations"; The Airworthiness Division has issued the Interim Provisions on the Administration of Civil UAVs and the Regulations on the Registration Management of Civil Unmanned Aircraft Real Names.

In 2016, Dajiang’s sales in the Chinese market declined slightly. Even in Xinjiang where the overwhelming advantage of consumer-class drones has been achieved, there is also new thinking about the market and the decision to move into the various segments of the industrial drone market.

In fact, Dajiang has already begun the layout of industrial-grade drones. “If China Southern Power Grid patrols the line, Dajiang does not even account for 80%, and 60% is certainly there,” said an industry source.

"To date, the number of drone companies in Shenzhen is about 50, of which there may be more than a dozen of them to be consumer-level." Li Da told the Beijing News to find a reporter for China's Makers.

For the most part, Zhao Hao, the director of investment at Xinghao Capital, has seen a lot of drone startups BP, but "has not been concerned about consumer-level developments." This can be regarded as a microcosm of the current trend of investment institutions. The growth of the market slowed down and the competitiveness of small companies was insufficient. At this stage, Zhao Hao was more optimistic about the development of drones at the industry level.

"After the tide of investment, the competition of (drone) companies will be a contest between technological strength, industrial chain management, and the amount of capital." Zhao Guocheng expects that in 2018 more consumer-grade drone companies will close down or choose to transition.

"The main reason is that the temporary growth in consumer demand is weak. There is also a gap between the product experience of consumer-class drones and consumer expectations." According to Zhang Hao, Director of Operations, Xingdu Capital, consumer-class drones are not really high-frequency just needed. In business scenarios, the outbreak of industrial-grade drones may be faster than the consumer level.

Business scene

In fact, the industry-class track was already entered by players and the YiWat drone was targeted at the industry level in 2010.

“Unlike the consumer drone market, the industrial-grade drone market is in the Blue Ocean era.” According to Zhao Guocheng, the founder of Yiwat, the deep application of the drone industry in various segments has greater commercial value. And market size. Because the industrial-grade market mainly focuses on the technical performance and industrial applications of the aircraft, it needs to repeatedly communicate with the industry customers and continuously improve the program in actual use, so it has strong customer stickiness and barriers.

The consumer-grade drones have also made technical reserves for industrial-grade drones. According to data from the China Intellectual Property Network, from June 2013 to June 2016, the number of UAV patents nationwide increased significantly in just three years. The five key technologies of the drone industry are the body structure design technology and body materials. Technology, flight control technology, wireless communication remote control technology, and wireless image transmission technology have all made breakthroughs.

Has the industry-class drone found a business scenario that really creates value? What can industry-grade drones do?

"In addition to having children, you can think of all industries, drones can be combined." In-depth understanding of the industry, you will find Li Da this sentence is not a joke.

In addition to the recent applications that have gradually become known in the field of logistics, drones have emerged in fields such as agricultural plant protection, power inspection, 3D mapping, security, medical treatment, and drug control.

“The impression was deeper was a drone exercise performed by a public security bureau some time ago.” Li Da said that during the exercise, the crew of eight drones blocked the suspects who had fled by driving through airborne vehicles and delivered them in real time. Back HD image and positioning. After the suspect abandoned the car and fled to the densely populated area, the unmanned aerial vehicle reloaded the blocking net and caused the suspect to temporarily lose the ability to respond by launching a detonation bomb. "Even if it is only an exercise, we can see the broad prospects of drones in the field of security." Li Da said with emotion.

In the field of firefighting, the main purpose of drones at present is to observe. "After the infrared camera, find the fire point in the smoke and throw the fire extinguishing bomb to control the fire." Li Da said, this is of great significance for the forest fire and the high-rise building that currently has no effective solution.

In agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance, and the Civil Aviation Administration recently issued a notice announcing that in 2017, six provinces and cities including Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, and Chongqing will be selected to conduct pilot planted UAV subsidies. This means that the plant protection UAVs that have been waiting for years in the industry will have more room for spraying pesticides, sowing and fertilizing.

Concerns, the future

The transition to the industry level is almost a consensus reached by the entire circle. In this hot blue ocean, how do many companies stand out?

"We must have the core technology to serve the drone industry." In the view of Zhao Hao, director of investment of the Star Capital, adding artificial intelligence terminals, such as judging hidden dangers during the cruise, will greatly improve the capabilities of the entire drone. . The new three-board drone defense enterprise is a good example. As the only drone anti-drug flight service provider in China, Guandian Defense has established a system of UAV geographic information database, and provides an overall service plan integrating drone as a carrier for aerial surveying, interpretation and ground inspection.

In addition to the core technologies, whether or not they can be deeply coupled with service areas is also considered to be the key to the success of the industry drones. Zhang Hao, Director of Operations at Xingye Capital, believes: "The industrial chain is more scalable in the upstream." Future successful civil drone companies need to provide end-to-end, from hardware, software and cloud infrastructure (storage and analysis) to customers Customized overall solution.

The ability to quickly spread out localized after-sales services may be the biggest barrier for future industry drones. Zhang Lei, who is engaged in the sales work of Yifei Intelligent Control, knows that the after-sales of industrial-grade drones is divided into regions. “The aerial drone is broken and I can send it back to the headquarters for repairs. It will be no problem if I wait for more than half a month, but if it is a plant protection drone, the cycle of pests and diseases will be only 10 days, and it will take 15 days to send it back to the headquarters for repair.” I can't wait.” The ability to respond quickly is crucial to the industry drones.

Based on the localization of after-sales service, it is difficult to quickly develop in the country. Zhang Lei believes that in the short-term, industry-class drones will not appear as a dominating situation like the consumer-grade ones.

The transformation of the drone industry to industry-level seems to be in full swing, but it has not yet reached exponential growth like the consumption level in 2015, and the whole is in the pre-explosion stage of accumulation.

The reason, Zhang Lei believes, is that "investors cannot see a more meticulous future."

Taking plant protection drones as an example, Zhang Lei calculated an account before joining Yifei Yicheng: spraying pesticides with drones, the cost per mu was 4 yuan, and the income was 20 yuan. One person and one machine could spray 300 to one day. 500 acres of land. "This is a very profitable business."

However, what Zhang Lei did not expect was that the technical difficulties in the national conditions of non-continental land, the operational level of the flying man, and obstacle avoidance made the plant protection drone's advantages in terms of cost almost non-existent.

Obstacle avoidance is crucial for the flight of mainstream drones, but existing solutions are still at the prototype stage. To ensure public safety, sensors, sensing algorithms, and drone designs need to be improved. About 30 minutes of endurance capacity has also become an industry-class drone that is difficult to properly resolve in the near future.

After two years of observing the market, Li Da also believes that the adaptability of the industrial scene is insufficient, "the big industry has not yet fully started," and the industrial drone has not yet achieved a solid foundation in terms of technology and market.

Is an industry-class drone a good business worth investing in? Sequoia Capital’s founder Michael Moritz’s answer is: “Unmanned aerial vehicles are the trend of the future. After decades, no one will be as popular as trains and cars.” Only, it is not known that several companies can survive the long burning cycle. , And do not know how many investors are willing to wait until it makes money on that day.

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