Changkong Power has completed a new round of financing, which will be used for product mass production and real-world scenario deployment.
Heavy-duty tethered UAVs solve high-rise fire fighting challenges, Changkong Dynamics secures financing
Changkong Dynamics, an industrial UAV enterprise based in Haining, Zhejiang, is shifting its attempts to solve the fire fighting problem of high-rise buildings from the ground to the air. Founded in 2022, the company has recently launched a new round of financing, and the raised funds will be used for the finalization, mass production and scenario implementation of high-payload ducted UAV products. Its core idea is to use a pure electric ducted UAV with a takeoff weight of hundreds of kilograms to complete water spraying fire fighting at an altitude of 100 meters, bypassing the physical height limit of the ladders of traditional fire trucks and aerial lift vehicles.
Heights unreachable for aerial lift vehicles, equipment iteration has long lagged behind the growing height of buildings
High-rise building fire fighting is a proposition that has been repeatedly mentioned in the fire rescue system, but there is still a lack of mature equipment solutions. Data released by fire rescue departments shows that the number of high-rise buildings in China continues to rise, and a number of buildings constructed in the 1980s, 1990s and the early 21st century have aging building structures and aging fire facilities overlapping, leading to increasing fire risks. Correspondingly, the disposal methods are relatively limited: the effective operating height of the main urban fire trucks is generally concentrated at the level of dozens of meters, and aerial platform vehicles are restricted by the boom structure, site bearing capacity and wind conditions, so it is often difficult to operate stably at heights exceeding 100 meters.
This means that in the face of a fire in a building over 100 meters high, the direct suppression capability provided by ground equipment is quite limited, and on-site disposal relies more on indoor fire hydrants, fixed fire fighting facilities built in the building and internal attack by personnel. In September 2023, the Action Plan for the Development of Key Areas of Safety Emergency Equipment (2023-2025) jointly issued by five departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China has clearly listed special fire rescue equipment and unmanned fire fighting equipment for special scenarios such as high-rise buildings, large complexes and underground spaces as development directions, which exactly points to the above capability gap.
Policies have pointed out the direction, but the implementation is still constrained by equipment maturity. A common view in industry discussions is that models that can be used in actual fire fighting need to meet the standards of wind resistance, battery life and payload at the same time, and any unqualified index will make it difficult to enter the equipment procurement list of fire departments. The pure lithium battery solution has short battery life under full load conditions, the impact of fire hot airflow and gusts on the stability of rotorcraft, and the passability of the whole machine under rapid vehicle-mounted deployment are several unavoidable engineering thresholds. Changkong Dynamics has placed its technical route on ducted fans, and its core judgment is that the closed ducted structure has natural structural advantages in safety, noise and crosswind resistance performance.
Tethered power supply and modular payloads are implemented in parallel to connect UAVs to the ground water supply system
The main product of Changkong Dynamics is the CK-6H-650 high-payload pure electric ducted UAV. Public product data shows that the UAV has a takeoff weight of 650 kg and a maximum payload of 300 kg, can realize water spraying operations at a height of more than 100 meters, and supports two working modes: tethered flight and free flight. The power system adopts the company's self-developed D105L ducted fan, the whole machine structure is made of carbon fiber material to achieve lightweight, and it is equipped with a high-performance flight control computer.
Its operation logic is significantly different from that of traditional multi-rotor UAVs. Multi-rotor UAVs in fire scenes are often restricted by both battery capacity and hot airflow, and their effective air endurance is difficult to support a complete fire fighting process. The CK-6H-650 adopts a different idea: the UAV is carried and dispatched by a large fire truck, and the ground fire pump and tethered pipeline continuously supply liquid upward, while tethered power supply solves the energy source required for long-term air hovering. The combination of the two makes the aircraft an extended node of the ground water supply system in the air, rather than a delivery tool that carries fire extinguishing agent independently and releases it at one time after taking off.
Theoretically, this air-ground integrated operation method can raise the fire fighting height line from the physical limit of ground equipment to more than 100 meters, and at the same time reduce the interference of fire hot airflow and gusts on the attitude by relying on the ducted structure's constraint on airflow. In terms of product form, Changkong Dynamics has designed a modular quick-release interface for it, which can be equipped with horizontally launched fire extinguishing devices, throwing fire extinguishing devices and material transport and delivery devices, corresponding to tasks such as high-rise building fire fighting, window breaking and forest fire fighting, and emergency rescue delivery respectively. During the 2025 China Emergency Exhibition, the company participated in the exhibition with the CK-6H-650, taking high-rise building fire fighting as the main display scenario on site.
In addition to the technical route, composite material capability constitutes another layer of engineering barrier. In September 2025, the company won the second prize in the growth group with the project "Industrialization of Advanced Aviation Structure and Function Integrated Composite Materials" in the "Tide Rises East · Win in Haining" Entrepreneurship Competition in Haining. The project focuses on the application of long continuous fiber reinforced thermoplastic materials in UAV structures. The mechanical properties of such materials can be close to the level of aluminum alloy, and they are more suitable for automated production, which is of direct significance for reducing the weight of the whole machine and reducing costs on a large scale. The company is simultaneously promoting the implementation of new composite material production lines, with the same goal of mass production cost and delivery capability.
The production line from components to complete machines has taken shape, and mass delivery has entered the verification period
Yanguan, Haining, is the current production, testing and future headquarters location of Changkong Dynamics. The company settled in the Hardware Industrial Park of Yanguan Town in early 2025, and entered the stage of technological achievement transformation half a year later. Information released by the Haining Municipal Government in August 2025 shows that the company has signed two orders to provide fully automatic unmanned inspection platforms for local and out-of-province customers, and the equipped compound wing UAVs are mainly used in the field of traffic inspection; in the same period, the company estimated that the sales volume will exceed 15 million yuan by the end of 2025. The same information also mentions that the base also produces UAV accessories, and plans to update the production equipment adopting thermoplastic long fiber composite material technology in the second half of the year to improve mass production efficiency.
The fire protection main business is also undergoing the transformation from technical verification to delivery verification. In public reports, Tang Fei, the company's technical director, once mentioned that the maturity of the ducted fan technical route and its market potential have been verified in the previous year, and the focus of the new year is to reduce the weight of the fuselage by another 20% to 30% and enhance the adaptability of the product in harsh environments. The same source also mentions that the effective takeoff weight of the new generation model has been increased to 600 kg, which can take off with a payload of 250 kg. The fuselage structure has become stable after multiple rounds of iterations, and the production line will be promoted to settle in Yanguan for large-scale production after the process matures.
The expansion speed of application scenarios is also testing the upper limit of this production line. In addition to high-rise building fire fighting, logistics UAVs have also been included in the product development plan. In the previous tests, the experimental UAV with a payload of 70 kg and a speed of more than 70 km/h completed the material delivery verification for the Yangtze River river island. The external output of technical capabilities is also in progress. The company has provided technical support for UAV products including fixed-wing UAVs for many domestic enterprises. In terms of business model, Changkong Dynamics covers three lines: complete equipment sales, composite structural parts manufacturing and technical services, and its revenue source is not limited to a single model.
In terms of team background, the core team of the company comes from scientific research and engineering institutions such as the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, and has accumulated technologies in aerodynamics, structural mechanics, lightweight high-strength aviation composite materials and UAV flight control systems. The founder Kang Kai serves as the legal representative and manager of the company, and Tang Fei serves as the technical director. Industrial and commercial information shows that the company's registered capital is about 10.5263 million yuan.
The demand is real, but large-scale equipment installation still depends on actual combat verification
From the perspective of market space, there are estimated scale data from institutions for the high-rise fire UAV track, with large differences in different calibers, generally pointing to the level of tens of billions of yuan. It needs to be clarified that this figure is a forecast of research institutions and cannot be directly equated with the current purchasable market. The more consensus judgment in the industry is that the demand side is not absent, what is absent are products that can stably complete tasks in complex fire scenes and supporting formation standards. The science and technology innovation department of Shenzhen once disclosed that when the local government organized the UAV super high-rise building fire rescue test, 63 enterprises from all over the country signed up, which reflects the number of participants and the attention of the demand side, and also shows that the number of samples that have really completed actual combat verification is still scarce.
The pace of standard and mechanism construction directly affects the commercialization curve of products. The Regulations on the Development of Low-altitude Economy in Guangzhou issued by Guangzhou proposes that emergency management departments and fire rescue agencies should promote the demonstration and application of unmanned aerial vehicle emergency rescue equipment in scenarios such as high-rise building fire protection, forest fire prevention and disaster rescue, and establish an information sharing and joint rescue mechanism among relevant institutions. This kind of institutional supply at the local level provides space for the demonstration application of equipment, but the national unified product standards, man-machine cooperation specifications and UAV networking procedures are still in the process of being established.
For Changkong Dynamics, this round of financing is to solve the gap from "can fly and can spray" to "can be delivered in batches and can be procured": product finalization and airworthiness compliance capability, composite material production line ramp-up, long-term reliability data in actual combat environment, and demonstration application cases for fire protection clients. These are the necessary links for hard technology equipment from R&D to procurement, and also the key variables for subsequent valuation and financing rhythm.
The company said that the funds from the new round of financing will be mainly invested in the finalization and mass production of core products such as the CK-6H-650, scenario implementation and team expansion. The specific financing round and amount will be disclosed later.