Leading the Low-altitude Economy: Insights from the Frontline of the Drone Industry | A Recap of OpenTalk

Text | Liu Jingqiong

Editor | A Zhi

On April 23, 2025, 36Kr hosted the "Trillion - dollar Low - altitude Market, Drones Take Off First" OpenTalk live event. The live event specially invited Li Wei, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Hive Aerospace; Li Yifan, a partner, and the vice - president of strategy, investment, and financing at Guoke Rongyuan; and Xu Keda, the chairman and CEO of Hongpeng Aviation. The three guests conducted in - depth sharing on multiple aspects such as the digital low - altitude intelligent service system, drone application scenarios and practical cases, low - altitude governance, drone detection and countermeasures, and domestic aero - engines, and interacted online with the audience. The following is a summary of the key points of this live event. Welcome to read, share, and collect.

Construction Plan and Practice of the Digital Low - altitude Intelligent Service System

Guest Speaker: Li Wei, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Hive Aerospace. He obtained his master's and doctoral degrees from the Department of Astronautics at the Moscow Aviation Institute, majoring in "Aircraft Motion Control, Ballistics, and Flight Mechanics". He serves as the director of the Department of Aircraft Design and Mechanics in the School of Aerospace Engineering at Shenyang Aerospace University and co - founded Hive Aerospace Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

Keywords for Sharing: #New Low - altitude Infrastructure, #Airspace Management, #Urban Digital Base and Air Services, #Drone Scene Applications

Li Wei mainly introduced the current digital low - altitude intelligent service system and shared relevant information combined with the product applications of Hive Aerospace.

According to the development needs of the low - altitude economy, under the guidance of the government, China is steadily promoting the construction of a digital low - altitude intelligent service system, forming a construction model of "Three Networks, Two Platforms, One Center, and N Applications". Li Wei intuitively demonstrated the composition of the digital low - altitude intelligent service system in the following figure.

Digital Low - altitude Intelligent Service System

The low - altitude facility network in the "Three Networks" refers to the construction of a series of general aviation airports, take - off and landing points, drone cabinets, and corresponding supporting enhanced service equipment to form a low - altitude flight operation network. The low - altitude air networking refers to a set of low - altitude perception infrastructure that needs to be built to achieve unified access to low - altitude data, unified supervision of low - altitude flights, and overall scheduling of low - altitude resources. The low - altitude air route network refers to the collection of public/special airspace, air routes, flight paths, and their supporting management rules and evaluation methods constructed for regional low - altitude flight application scenarios.

It is reported that Hive Aerospace's current Bee Flight Application Service Platform belongs to the low - altitude application service platform in the "Two Platforms". It includes drone and hangar systems, unattended monitoring systems, data storage and management systems, and data intelligent processing systems. This platform can form the regional observation ability of regular monitoring and rapid response, improve the long - term high - precision observation, emergency response, and data analysis abilities of the region, enhance the level of public services, and improve the efficiency of urban governance.

The "One Center" refers to the low - altitude operation service center, which has four basic responsibilities: flight plan service, aviation information and meteorological service, alarm and rescue assistance, flight monitoring, and in - flight service. On this basis, combined with regional characteristics, it conducts publicity and education work on general aviation culture and tourism.

The "N Applications" mean that the digital low - altitude intelligent service system can be widely applied to multiple business scenarios such as cities (smart construction sites, smart mines, smart parks), energy (power transmission, transformation, and distribution inspections, wind power inspections, photovoltaic inspections, oil pipeline inspections), environment (river and lake inspections, coastline inspections), and policing (emergency fire protection, traffic police and road administration).

According to Li Wei, Hive Aerospace's drones currently have benchmark demonstration cases in multiple scenarios such as public safety, emergency rescue, smart cities, forestry and grasslands & nature reserves, oil pipelines, power inspections, and highway inspections.

The unattended system of Hive Aerospace used by Siyang Public Security Bureau in Jiangsu

The drones of Hive Aerospace used for emergency rescue by the Beijing Municipal Government

Low - altitude Governance & Drone Detection and Countermeasures

Guest Speaker: Li Yifan, a partner and the vice - president of strategy, investment, and financing at Guoke Rongyuan. He graduated from Loughborough University with a major in management. He has worked in leading Internet companies such as Tencent, Didi, and CAR Inc., with rich experience in strategy, product, and commercialization projects. He is a serial entrepreneur with successful entrepreneurship and exit experience. The project of Guoke Rongyuan won the first - place first - prize in the finals of the 9th China Aviation Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.

Keywords for Sharing: #Low - altitude Safety and Governance, #Drone Detection and Countermeasures, #Multi - situation Fusion Perception and Processing, #Key Area Defense, #Electronic Countermeasures

Li Yifan popularized the two types of targets for drone governance (cooperative targets and non - cooperative targets), and then introduced the core technical routes for counter - drone measures.

According to the different governance targets of drones, there are essential differences in the control methods and technical routes adopted in the industry. Generally speaking, for a drone to perform a flight mission, it needs three necessary links: the flight control link (data transmission link), the payload link (image transmission link), and the navigation link. According to management requirements, drones sold legally and compliantly must use the frequency points and channels specified by the public security and radio management authorities. In addition, cooperative targets also need to be compulsorily installed with an air traffic control link (similar to ADS - B) that actively broadcasts public - protocol signals during flight. Non - cooperative target drones only have the three necessary links, without an air traffic control link, and their frequency points, channels, and bandwidth are all unknown and random. The technical threshold for detecting, direction - finding, and countering non - cooperative targets is high.

Comparison of differences between cooperative and non - cooperative targets

For the governance of cooperative target drones, most technical solutions are based on the protocol signals actively broadcast by the air traffic control link and the known and fixed frequency points and channels to achieve detection, direction - finding, and countermeasures. The demand - side conducts detection by deploying receivers to receive broadcast information, mainly uses communication suppression, and achieves counter - effect by broadcasting noise.

For non - cooperative targets, in the detection stage, multi - situation fusion means such as electronic detection, radar detection, and optical detection need to be used. The counter - measures for non - cooperative targets can be divided into two major categories: soft disposal and hard destruction. Soft disposal is the main disposal solution that has reached a consensus at home and abroad at present, with advantages such as low cost, long - range effect, and area - killing ability. Hard destruction includes means such as incendiary devices, lasers, high - energy microwaves, and using drones to counter drones.

Li Yifan mentioned that currently, the cost and technical threshold for transforming cooperative targets into non - cooperative targets are not high. After simple modification, cooperative targets will become non - cooperative targets with the threat of "illegal flight", which also puts forward higher technical requirements for drone governance manufacturers. Facing the increasingly complex drone flight situations, drone governance mainly adopts the end - stage electronic counter - measure solution of "Three Detections and Four Counter - measures". "Three Detections" means using multi - situation fusion means of radar detection, photoelectric detection, and radio detection in the detection stage. "Four Counter - measures" means using a combination of communication suppression, communication jamming of navigation, deception of navigation jamming, and counter - measures for integrated counter - processing.

On May 1, 2023, the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China promulgated the "Interim Regulations on the Flight Management of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" (Decree No. 761 of the State Council), which clearly defined the control requirements for drone activities, including the principle of "key area defense" for critical infrastructure. The release and implementation of Decree No. 761 is a key milestone in the transformation of the civil scenario from "controlling the accidental flight of cooperative targets" to "defending against the illegal flight of non - cooperative targets".

Currently, Guoke Rongyuan's main products in operation include the electronic counter - measure series of "Terminal - guided Low - altitude Electronic Counter - measure Battlefield Tactical - level Equipment" and the civil "Low - altitude Governance Drone Detection and Counter - measure System". The products have passed the R & D stage, achieved standardization, and are in production. The main customers cover multiple military branches, ministries and commissions, local governments, military - industrial groups, and research institutes.

Guoke Rongyuan's low - altitude vehicle - mounted defense platform

Guoke Rongyuan's backpack - type integrated drone detection, jamming, and measurement equipment

The Low - altitude Economy Requires Domestic, Autonomous, and Controllable Low - cost Aero - engines

Guest Speaker: Xu Keda, the chairman and CEO of Hongpeng Aviation. He holds a master's degree from Renmin University of China, has served in the military for more than 20 years, has a full understanding of China's aviation equipment system, and has excellent leadership. He can fully organize the talent and supply - chain advantages of the aero - engine industry chain to promote the industrialization, marketization, and internationalization of the company's aero - engine products and catch up with the world - class level. Currently, Xu Keda has 9 patents related to aero - engines.

Keywords for Sharing: #Airworthiness - compliant Low - cost Aero - engines, #Low - altitude Economy, #New - quality Productivity

Taking Hongpeng Aviation as an example, Xu Keda shared the experience and lessons learned in the process of manufacturing domestic, autonomous, and controllable low - cost aero - engines.

In the initial stage of the company's establishment, Xu Keda suggested that private enterprises should not create markets based on the personal hobbies of the founders, but create products according to market demand. Whatever the market lacks, the enterprise should do it. Taking the aero - engine field as an example, in the past, only large state - owned enterprises in China were involved in related products, and their products were mainly for high - power military high - altitude aircraft, which could not well meet the needs of low - and medium - altitude aircraft. Sensing this demand, at the beginning of its establishment, Hongpeng Aviation targeted the general aviation power market in the low - altitude economy field, launched small and medium - sized aero - engine products below 1000KW, and explored in the fields of pistons, turboprops, and hybrid power at the same time.

When talking about how to balance the low cost and high airworthiness of aero - engines, Xu Keda admitted that currently, Hongpeng Aviation adopts the path of converting automobile engines into aero - engines and at the same time strengthens the construction of the domestic supply chain to reduce costs. The final price of some engine products is expected to be reduced to 1/3 of that of competitors. In addition, by acquiring a European enterprise with rich technology precipitation in converting automobile engines into aero - engines and an airworthiness technology system, Hongpeng Aviation solved the problem of meeting airworthiness standards in a short time, which