Let’s start with a seemingly unrelated multiple-choice question:

　　If you put the latest Tesla and a similarly priced fuel car together, what would you choose?

　　Choosing Tesla is not only because of environmental protection, economy, and fashion, but also because it is cool. After all, it is a product with Silicon Valley roots and IT concepts; but if you take into account long-distance travel, practicality at home , and actual national conditions, Tesla may not be a satisfactory choice. The first car you need is, after all, professional charging piles are only a fraction of the number of gas stations compared to them.

　　But there is no doubt that the emergence of Tesla is like a catfish that stirred up the automobile market, stimulating the technological upgrading of countless domestic and foreign car companies, whether it is in the exploration of new energy utilization, or in human-computer interaction, Internet of Vehicles and driverless technology. In terms of promoting the industry, Tesla has done more than just a little bit of work for the entire industry.

　　The invention of the automobile as a tool for long-distance transportation has made its relationship with people more practical-based during its development. Drones, which are also representatives of tool types, are actually closely related to this proven development history to some extent.

Does the Tesla generation represent the future 　　in the field of drones ?

　　In the past four or five years since the drone market became the darling of the market, who is the Tesla in this field? Before answering this question, we need to take a closer look at the development history of drones.

　　UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) – actually judging from the English name, it is still inevitably related to cars. Before technological innovation and lowering of barriers, it has always been the product of scientific research and experimentation by the military of various countries. . Looking back today, drones are almost 100 years old: During World War I, with the military support of Sperry and others, the world’s first drone was born in the United States. They built a manned drone The aircraft was converted into a drone for test flights. Unfortunately, all experiments failed. However, the experience and data obtained here laid the foundation for the successful development of the first unmanned target drone 16 years later on the eve of World War II.

　　In the 20th century, both hot wars and cold wars objectively provided catalysts for human technological progress.

　　In subsequent war operations, drones appeared more frequently. Whether it was the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, the Middle East War in the 1970s and 1980s, or the Gulf War in the early 1990s, its rise entered an accelerated stage. Of course, to carry out such high-precision military missions, all drones are fuel-powered.

　　So after ushering in the golden development period, with the improvement of navigation, flight control and engine technology, the superior performance of drones has also increased its commercial value. The military aircraft market forecasting agency Teal Group announced its global forecast as early as the 2013 Association of Unmanned Systems International (AUVSI) conference: global spending on drones will double in the next 10 years, increasing from US$5.2 billion in 2014 to US$11.6 billion in 2023. , with a total scale of 84 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 10.8%. Among them, investment in research and development of unmanned aerial systems will increase from US$1.9 billion in 2014 to US$4 billion in 2023, and procurement costs will increase from US$3.3 billion to US$7.6 billion.

　　Although this prediction three years ago was only for the military aircraft market, it is not difficult to see the future explosiveness of the civilian drone market with the same potential. The reasons are nothing more than two points: the popularization and deep penetration of Internet communication technology have further spread the open source of flight control technology from military to civilian fields; the enthusiasm of capital hot money for industry trends has made low-cost manufacturing compared with military drones cost possible.

　　As a result, DJI took the lead in using electric direct-drive multi-rotors as a trump card, and many consumer drones emerged behind it. So the previous question should be answered like this: DJI, which has occupied 80% of the global market, is the Tesla in the field of civilian drones. However, the functions and ceilings of the consumer drone market are obvious, as the former “Wired” “Drones are like smartphones , only they fly,” said Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of the magazine and author of “Maker .”

　　Will Tesla be the future of the automotive industry? I don’t know, but its emergence has definitely led to the rise of the industry – just like DJI.

Fuel VS electric – the choice between industrial drones

　　Besides taking selfies, what else should we do? This is not a question that consumer drones can answer.

　　Let’s first turn our attention to Japan: In November, Yamaha will launch the Frazer R, an agricultural drone released in October. As an agricultural drone, the Frazer R can carry up to 32 liters of chemicals at a time and spray nearly four hectares of farmland. Large load capacity and high endurance. Obviously, the Frazer R is equipped with a fuel-injection engine with a diameter exhaust function and better compression rate. The power output can reach 20.6kW. The price is not cheap either, 870,000 yuan – because this is a fuel-powered unmanned helicopter.

　　Yamaha’s debut in agricultural plant protection drones can be traced back to 1997, when it launched a drone called Rmax for domestic agricultural use.

Compared with Japan, China’s breakthrough in the field of commercial agricultural drones should be the establishment of XAG Technology in 2005. Since then, they have developed drones specifically suitable for agricultural plant protection, and have gradually begun to use them on a large scale in the northwest region. But what is not surprising is that whether it is DJI, which started as a consumer drone, or Jifei, which focuses on agricultural plant protection drones, their newly launched drone models are all powered by electricity. Therefore, The frequency of use per unit area of ​​farmland is high, the duration of single use is short, and large loads cannot be carried, so the use efficiency has not been substantially improved.

　　This is a problem that cannot be solved for a while using electric output drones given the existing battery technology. However, in China, in the field of industrial drones, there are also a few drone teams that use fuel as power output, and they are committed to changing the power output method to solve this problem.

　From a purely technical point of view, the way for a petrol-powered direct-drive multi-rotor drone to control the engine speed is to use the flight control to control the servo to change the size of the engine throttle, thereby controlling its flight attitude. However, because the vibration of the fuel engine is still relatively large compared to the motor, it is difficult to compete with the electric direct-drive multi-rotor UAV in terms of wind resistance and engine selection. Therefore, this is not suitable for a fuel-powered multi-rotor drone. The human-machine flight control system has put forward higher requirements.

But in 2016, a young Chinese company officially released a new generation fuel-powered drone with a payload capacity of 30kg, a battery life of 2.5 hours, and the capability to cover an area of ​​1,500 acres in a single day. Equipped with an advanced flight control system of an oil-driven direct-drive multi-rotor system, a Xinjiang-based company has signed a contract. It will also continue to expand its operations eastward and northward to conduct agricultural plant protection work in the Northeast and Central Plains

Obviously, what is the future of domestically produced oil-driven direct-drive drones? They have provided one of the answers.