At 13:45 on April 15, on the operating table 12 kilometers away from the Nanjing Red Cross Blood Center, there was an urgent blood demand for a difficult tumor operation: "Pukou District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 4 units of O type red blood cell washing".

13: 48. The blood was taken out of the warehouse, and went to the apron on the 7th floor. The pilot confirmed the weather conditions.

13: 53. The UAV carrying the blood container "takes off with one button" through the ground station computer.

14: 10. The UAV landed at the Pukou District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine on the north bank of the Yangtze River and completed the normal 40 minute drive in 17 minutes.

"On the operating table, Yin and Yang may be separated by one minute." In the opinion of Wang Haining, head of the planned blood supply department of the Nanjing Red Cross Blood Center, the "low altitude blood route" opens up a life route.

This route is one of the application scenarios for Nanjing to develop low altitude economy. The industrial cultivation behind it is by no means as simple as "one click takeoff". Six years ago, Pukou District of Nanjing City and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (hereinafter referred to as "China Southern Airlines") signed a cooperation agreement on UAV project. By October 2020, Pukou High tech Zone will be approved as one of the first 13 civil pilotless aviation test zones in China, which is the starting point for the development of civil UAV routes in Nanjing.

At this year's two sessions of the National People's Congress, the "low altitude economy" was written into the government work report for the first time. Facing the trillions of industrial outlets, how will Nanjing compete on this track?

Xijiang Base of Nanjing Civil Unmanned Aviation Test Zone. Drawing provided by Pukou High tech Zone

The "chassis" of low altitude economy

In the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River, the bridge and dock trucks come and go, and the sky seems empty; In the eyes of He Yafei, a drone pilot, "low altitude routes" will become more and more busy.

From the pilot's screen, the aforementioned "low altitude blood route" took two turns - first flew 3 kilometers across the urban area, then flew along the Qinhuai River into the sky over the Yangtze River, then went up the river, turned into the Chengnan River in Pukou District on the opposite bank, and finally landed at the District People's Hospital and the District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine on both sides of the river.

The "twists and turns" in the route hide the "chassis" of the healthy development of low altitude economy. In January this year, the Interim Regulations on Flight Management of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles came into effect, which clearly stipulated the airspace reporting and licensed flight.

He Yafei's Jiangsu Tiance Zhicheng General Aviation Co., Ltd. is a low altitude blood transportation contractor. His boss, Liu Biao, has been a civil aviation pilot for more than ten years. For him, the advantage of having aviation industry background is that he is familiar with civil aviation regulations and aviation operation management. Liu Biao said that the flight route design first needs to select an airspace suitable for flight, and at the same time, try to avoid the crowd gathering area and travel along the river.

Flying hand is also one of the elements of industry development. He Yafei, 24 years old, took part in a month long training last year. After obtaining the license of "Medium UAV Operator" issued by the Civil Aviation Administration, he went to work with the certificate.

Key information, including routes and pilots, will eventually converge to the "Nanjing Low Altitude Service Management Platform" located in Pukou District. On the big blue screen, the information of the whole city's routes, no fly zones, takeoff and landing points, registered pilots and other information are clearly visible, and the "C" route of UAV blood delivery is also among them. The relevant person in charge of the platform said that the popularization of every means of transportation must not be barbaric growth, and standardized management will become the basis for the "takeoff" of low altitude economy.

Xu Tao, an examiner and coach of Jiangsu Civil Aviation UAV Training Center, believes that young people like He Yafei, taking the UAV license is only the first step in their career. He expects that in the busy low altitude airspace in the future, there will be "traffic regulations" and "traffic control 12123" for low altitude traffic. Everyone will have a license to "drive" and strictly observe the safety bottom line.

The takeoff and landing point for material distribution of "Yangtze River Convergence" UAV. Gao Chao, People's Daily Online

Find the right combination point of demand

"The key to developing low altitude economy is to find the right combination with production and life, urban management, and public service needs, and to seize opportunities, misplace competition, and develop with characteristics based on Jiangsu's advantages in science and education talents, industry support, market size, and so on." Xin Changxing, secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, said in a recent survey in Pukou District.

The freighter travels normally by the tide, and the UAV carries snacks, shampoo, vegetables and other living materials, and is gradually adjusted to the same speed as the freighter. With the extension of the lanyard, the materials fall steadily on the deck. At present, Nanjing has carried out UAV services such as crew livelihood protection and supply, ship pollutant reception, etc. for the normalization of transit ships. In the past six months, 13892 flights and 4536 service ships have been conducted in relevant business operations.

Taking the tide means saving fuel. The tide time is short, and the cargo ship will not stop at the service area on the river to purchase living materials. The crew only needs to place an order on the "Changjiang Hui" APP, and the materials can "fall from the sky".

"In the past, one or two hundred liters of diesel was used for a round trip of the traffic boat. Now, based on 15 times of UAV distribution every day, 600 tons of carbon emissions can be saved a year." Ge Jiashan, deputy general manager of Changjiang Hui, calculated an ecological economic account.

In addition to transporting blood and distributing materials on the river, Nanjing has released more than 10 UAV transport routes, including medicine, medical equipment, express delivery and other fields. "From a commercial point of view, UAV logistics has solved the cost problem of 'center edge' transportation and filled the short distance time sensitive logistics demand," said Ge Jiashan.

In Nanjing, a series of low altitude applications are building a foundation for urban fine governance and services: the maritime department uses drones to carry out regular cruises over 98 kilometers of the Yangtze River, saving 15 million yuan in fuel consumption annually; The urban management department can find the high-level construction violations with the help of UAV's air superiority and AI identification; It has planned nearly 360 kilometers of river course, fishing ban, road patrol and 80 square kilometers of forest patrol routes; The "digital twin" of 231 square kilometers, 73 key ground targets and major transportation hubs has been built through UAV photography

Cultivate new quality productivity and new engine

Nanjing, where scientific research institutes are concentrated, is regarded by the industry as the "intellectual highland" of aerospace technology: the city has more than 10 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the aerospace field, and about 400 young and middle-aged experts. In particular, China Southern Airlines has started the research on UAV technology since 1958.

Based on its special origin with China Southern Airlines, Pukou District has become an important starting point for Nanjing's low altitude economy. Since 2014, all the leaders of the "Science and Technology Town Leader Group" sent by Jiangsu Province to Pukou District have come from China Southern Airlines, and are related to the drone industry. Four heads of the delegation, ten years of relay, Pukou low altitude economy from scratch, and initially formed a gathering situation. Pukou High tech Zone has also been approved as the first batch of national and the only national civil pilotless aviation test zone in Jiangsu.

According to the Research Report on China's Low Altitude Economic Development (2024) released by CCID Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in April, Nanjing ranks third in the country after Beijing and Shenzhen in terms of the index of "low altitude economic patent effective quantity agglomeration"; On the index of "enterprise resource agglomeration", it ranks seventh in China.

It is understood that Nanjing has gathered more than 100 aerospace enterprises, of which more than 40 have landed in Pukou District, including low altitude manufacturing represented by Changkong Technology and AVIC Jincheng Unmanned System, low altitude protection represented by Smart Aviation Research Institute, China Unicom Low altitude Intelligent Networking Innovation Center, low altitude flight represented by Dayi Aviation, Tiance Zhicheng, Beidou Zhilian, Majec Low altitude integrated services represented by the phantom sky.

This industrial composition also shows that low altitude economy is not just a "drone", but a "whole industry chain concept", which needs to be comprehensively planned from the level of industrial planning and policy system. In this regard, the Action Plan of Nanjing City for Promoting Industrial Strength (2023-2025) proposes to accelerate the construction of low altitude intelligent networking and UAV base, build a national aviation electromechanical system model area, and constantly expand the scale of low altitude economic industry.

On March 14, Han Liming, Secretary of the Nanjing Municipal Party Committee, launched the "Service Enterprise · Face to face" activity, focusing on the development of Nanjing's low altitude economy. Han Liming said that we should seize the opportunity, seize the momentum, accelerate the expansion of industrial scale, improve innovation and competitiveness, and make low altitude economy a new engine for Nanjing to cultivate and develop new quality productivity.

"The urgent task is to give full play to the advantages of science and education, human resources, as well as geographical advantages such as proximity to the Yangtze River, to strengthen a number of leading enterprises and chain owners, and integrate Nanjing's accumulation in aircraft design and manufacturing, aviation command, software information, communication systems, integrated circuits and other fields into the new track of low altitude economy, so as to truly turn the 'good technology' of the innovation chain into the 'new application' of the industrial chain. ”Yang Bo, vice president of China Southern Airlines UAV Research Institute, said.

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