DJI encounters the "pocket drone" revolution? (Turn)
Text / Tencent Technology Bu Xiang, Wang Pan
At noon on November 20, it rained lightly in Beijing, and the wind was not strong. Outside the Zhongguancun Software Technology Park, Yang Jianjun and an engineer stood in front of the open lawn at the entrance of the building. The propeller propelled the small plane into the air 20 meters away, and then pulled it to 1.5 meters in front of it. When the engineer approaches the drone, two drones the size of Shufujia soap will automatically retreat; if the engineer retreats, the drone will automatically follow.
"This uses the preliminary automatic face recognition function," said Yang Jianjun. In the process of zooming out and zooming in just now, the small drone has recorded a video, which can be played directly on the mobile phone. Yang Jianjun is generally satisfied with the entire testing process. He posed an observed question to the engineer. At the moment when the plane was thrown from his hand and automatically hovered in the air, for a second, the fuselage in level flight would have an imperceptible shake, "Is this a Qualcomm? Platform compatibility issue?"
In the past year and a half, the Zero Intelligent Control UAV Company founded by Yang Jianjun has made a lot of noise. With the help of Qualcomm's chip platform integration technology, the weight of the UAV has dropped from more than one kilogram to about 200 grams. From four or five thousand yuan down to about 2,000 yuan. In contrast, the Mavic Pro, a small portable product launched by drone giant DJI, weighs 743 grams and costs about 5,000 yuan.
Yang Jianjun simply gave the newly developed drone Dobby an attribute - pocket drone. As a result, Yang Jianjun created a new category of drones between DJI's professional-level drones and many model drones. "Compared to the professional-level shooting of DJI drones, it is a single-lens reflex camera, and the pocket portable drone can be regarded as a card camera." Yang Jianjun said.
The card camera is commonly known as the point-and-shoot camera. Because of the intelligence of the drone, Yang Jianjun carefully chose the name of the card camera. Before it was replaced by smartphone photography, the shipments and market share of compact cameras far exceeded that of professional cameras, which led to the booming business of some companies. Today, the market for pocket-sized, including small, lightweight drones that can fit in a backpack is growing month by month. Tencent Technology (WeChat official account: qqtech) learned from upstream suppliers that Dobby’s monthly production capacity is 25,000 units. “We will soon make 30,000 units.” Yang Jianjun said.
"It will definitely exceed 1 million units next year", Zhang Shutao, senior vice president of Thundersoft and head of drone business, is more optimistic. The machine can be finished in one or two years.” In fact, DJI’s annual sales are now 10 billion yuan, and estimated at an average price of 5,000 yuan, about 2 million units.
More importantly, portable drones may only be a transitional form in the direction of future aerial robots, and solving aerial photography and video recording is only part of the function, and may become a new computing platform in the future. With the entry of big technology giants such as Qualcomm, Intel, and MediaTek, as well as the entry of mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung and Xiaomi, as well as the entry of drone companies such as Zero Degree and Zero Zero Infinite, they will impact DJI drones in the past 10 years. The commercial barriers erected in the field of drones in 2018. For pocket portable drones, it is no longer possible for DJI to hold its head high and ignore it.
How are portable drones made?
After the drone market was brought by DJI, many domestic and foreign manufacturers followed suit, and it was once hot. However, with its first-mover advantage and strong R&D capabilities, DJI has occupied 70-80% of the market share of four-rotor professional-grade image shooting drones, and other followers have failed to overtake. If you want to break through DJI, you can only find another way. Small and portable is one way, but limited by technical bottlenecks, there has been little progress.
Yang Jianjun still remembers the torment he suffered when he worked with Qualcomm staff to make drones small. At the end of August last year, the teams of Zero Degree and Qualcomm worked overtime continuously for more than half a month. Qualcomm even sent two engineers from the United States to work overtime continuously from day to night, but whether it is possible to use Qualcomm chips to make a flying thing is still a question. Unknown, "I felt that I was about to give up at that time." Yang Jianjun recalled to Tencent Technology.
Initially, Yang Jianjun's starting point for making a pocket drone was to "slap his head", only to be able to take some static pictures, which is one of the different directions of drones. "When a reporter goes to grab news, it is an exclusive secret weapon to be able to shoot some emergencies and take out a drone from his pocket to capture an aerial angle." However, it is a great challenge to have small portability requirements.
American chip maker Qualcomm has some ideas and plans for drones. Based on the 801 chip, it integrates functions such as image, CPU, communication, and flight control to form a motherboard, which greatly reduces the size of the entire core component. The size of the motherboard is 58x40 mm. . "But can it be done, and who are his customers?" Yang Jianjun thinks Qualcomm doesn't know either. Qualcomm is a world-class company in mobile communication, chip integration, etc., and found some domestic drone companies to open up new application breakthroughs for integrated motherboards, but many people refused. When he found Yang Jianjun, because of his sensitivity to drones, Yang Jianjun agreed to cooperate with Qualcomm and "just hit it off".
Yang Jianjun is the first to use an integrated motherboard. As the first cooperative company, there are many technical pits. The zero-degree algorithm and operating system cannot be installed in the integrated chip platform of Qualcomm, and some interfaces, tube angles and the like are very laborious. Zero degree engineers and engineers from the United States worked together for a week to solve the core flight control. In August last year, the plane finally flew.
It was already after one o'clock in the morning, and everyone was very excited. The American engineer sent an email to the headquarters to report the good news overnight. Immediately after the National Day military parade, Beijing was at its strictest on the no-fly control, and subsequent debugging and flying could only be done indoors. Later, Yang Jianjun learned that solving the problem of being able to fly is only the first step. The aircraft suddenly changed from 1.2 kg to about 200 grams. After it becomes smaller, there are still many problems to be overcome.
There are many loopholes in the earliest operating system, which can easily cause the plane to crash suddenly. After the aircraft became smaller, heat dissipation became a headache. The aircraft was shot during flight, and the image function was fully turned on. Compared with the chip used in mobile phones, the power consumption increased sharply, and finally it was solved by adding an internal fan.
Even adding a GPS chip to a small plane is a major challenge. The first-generation Hover Camera of the Zero Zero Infinite Portable UAV, which also uses the Qualcomm platform, gave up GPS, and more scenes were flying indoors.
Hover Camera Drone
Yang Jianjun insisted on keeping the GPS function. If there is no GPS, the camera can only identify the ground, and the speed is slow. When looking at the reference target, there will be drift, and the uncertainty will increase, so it cannot be applied outdoors. The price of leaving GPS is complicated procedures, increased cost, and higher battery compatibility requirements.
The mobile phone GPS only needs an approximate position, the error is large, and the location where the positioning is not ready is calibrated through the map. The aircraft is different, there are no other auxiliary sensors, and the tolerance error is only half a meter. It is precisely because GPS itself is highly sensitive that it is a very weak signal receiver. The GPS signal fell from the sky and experienced a lot of loss. Yang Jianjun needs to amplify the signal, and at the same time find a way to shield the interference caused by the battery radiation, high-frequency main chip, and memory DDR operation on the plane. There is a balance between volume and signal reception. There are technical difficulties here.
Solved the signal problem, and then to solve the problem of unclear shooting. The DJI drone itself is as big as a washbasin, and it can eliminate the impact of aircraft tremors on the camera by placing a mechanical three-axis gimbal. On the pocket drone, a three-axis gimbal will be installed, which will be very large. This problem was finally solved by Yang Jianjun and his team using the electronic image stabilization method developed by themselves.
To put it simply, the nose of the aircraft is suddenly lifted up. The camera is supposed to look at the front, but when the head is lifted up, the lens can be seen above. The electronic image stabilization method is to make a very accurate image according to the attitude of the aircraft. The overall move allows the user to see that the image is still stable.
In March 2016, Yang Jianjun was able to put the drone into his pocket, and it took more than two months to debug and perfect it. It was officially released on May 25, "the same day as the Xiaomi drone release", Yang Jianjun remembers. The difference is that the Xiaomi drone soon experienced a bombing incident, and the overall plan turned to cooperation with Qualcomm. And Yang Jianjun's drone sales have exceeded 10,000 per month.
Yang Jianjun imagined a larger application scenario. He found that Dobby can not only take still pictures, but also can be used for video. At the same time, "the user base has become wider, not only journalists, but also ordinary people can use it." In June and July this year, Yang Jianjun further clarified the product definition and style of play.
He slowly discovered that the continuous video within a radius of 20 meters was currently blank. For ordinary people, portable drones can climb to the top of Mount Tai when traveling, or by the lake. The drone can shoot a video that others can't shoot, and expand to an angle that people and selfie sticks can't reach. You can also enrich the trajectory, preset different shooting moving routes and angles, put the video in the mobile APP after shooting, output it to Meipai, Meitu Xiuxiu and Miaopai for simple editing, and finally share it through social tools such as WeChat. As a result, the user's difficulty in use is reduced, and the user stickiness is increased.
"The aircraft product itself is a drainage and an entrance." It is conceivable that once the new video gameplay is detonated, the portable drone will become a high-frequency daily shooting tool, and then may become a consumer electronic consumer goods. After working on drones for 9 years, Yang Jianjun seems to have found the possibility of bypassing DJI drones this time. "Small and flexible, once it is intelligent, it can do a lot of things," said Yang Jianjun.
Now, he enjoys the feeling of "pain and happiness". As the first batch of Qualcomm users, Zero is very tired. The advantage is that when others are still trying the 801 platform, the second-generation drone of Zero will be equipped with the 820 chip platform. It will be officially released at the CES show in the United States in January 2017.
Of course, not every drone company immediately follows the portable roads that companies such as Zero Degree and Zero Zero Infinite travel. DJI is still releasing 10,000 yuan-level specialized products at its own pace this year, and it is also very interested in agricultural drones, and has not immediately launched portable products of around 200 grams. Yifang Xiong, CMO of EHang UAV, told Tencent Technology that he believes that portability is always a core requirement of many UAV users, and believes that miniaturization will be the development trend of the consumer UAV market segment in the future.
However, he feels that it depends on whether it fits the product's positioning, target user needs and usage scenarios. "If you simply follow the trend and pursue small size and sacrifice too many other important factors such as battery life, wind resistance, stability, camera lens, etc., the experience will not be good. good". EHang will continue to pay attention to technology and market development trends, and combine its own product positioning and target user needs to create "strong experience" and "real demand" drone products.
Giants enter
In September 2015, Qualcomm officially launched the Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight drone platform designed for consumer drone applications. It is based on the Snapdragon 801 processor and can meet the needs of OEM manufacturers and developers for drone product development.
Qualcomm soon had a new customer, Zero Zero Infinite, after Zero. On October 16, 2016, Zero Zero Infinite announced the official release of the first safe and portable follow-up drone that can be folded like a book-HoverCameraPassport in the United States, priced at $599. The main selling point is safety, portability and ease of use. Wang Mengqiu, founder of Zero Zero Infinite, said that drones are no longer just a product for "aerial photography" services, but have entered the field of mass consumption in an all-round way.
Yang Jianjun also believes, "When there is only a 10 billion market, it is difficult for giants to enter the market. Within three to five years, consumer drones will definitely become a 100 billion market, and giants will definitely be brought in."
Qualcomm is one such giant. Yan Chenwei, vice president of Qualcomm product marketing, told Tencent Technology that Qualcomm has two advantages in entering the consumer drone industry: First, Qualcomm can provide technical support to manufacturers. Drones and smartphones are very similar. And Qualcomm's achievements in smartphones are remarkable. Second, the advantages of the product itself, the chip products and software algorithms provided by Qualcomm. For example, the first-generation product used by Zero is based on the Snapdragon 801 processor motherboard, which is powerful in image processing, connectivity, computing and processing power.
Yan Chenwei believes that the entry of Qualcomm will, like a smartphone, lower the threshold for industry development and facilitate some manufacturers to create user experience for their products, such as camera and camera functions. In terms of specific business operations, Qualcomm cooperates with ThunderComm, a joint venture with ThunderComm and some ODMs in Shenzhen, to support more manufacturers who want to use the Qualcomm UAV platform as drones.
It's not just Qualcomm that sees the prospect of drones. International upstream and upstream chip powerhouses Intel, Nvidia, MediaTek, etc. are all involved, and domestic Lianxin is also interested in making consumer-grade portable drones.
In this regard, Yang Jianjun holds an inclusive attitude. He believes that each company has its own advantages. At present, drone products are not as stereotyped as mobile phones, and they are full of various possibilities. If they are behind closed doors, the risk of making mistakes in the product direction will be great.
According to his analysis, each platform has its own characteristics. Qualcomm's advantage is highly integrated, and the supporting software is well done. There are features that drones require that aren't available on smartphones, such as flight controls, for which Qualcomm integrates flight control algorithms. Leadcore has a very good technology, called software radio SDR technology, which can configure the manufacturer's own communication algorithm, make a system and install it, so as to get rid of WiFi and other communication methods for mobile phones, a very good application is to use Do high-definition long-distance image transmission system. The Rockchip platform is characterized by the integration of CEVA's DSP, the latest generation of DSP, with low cost and many powerful functions, such as electronic image stabilization, which is very important for drones, and convolutional deep learning neural networks. The construction is equally competent.
Gao Peng, the founder of another drone startup, Borui Yunfei, told Tencent Technology that their company currently uses Leadcore's solution. He believes that Qualcomm chips have a relatively high degree of integration, but there are not too many interfaces, so it is difficult to expand. He believes that using a single mobile phone chip to make a drone, once the mobile phone chip crashes, the drone will be out of control. "We made a dual-core chip, a combined-core chip for computing, and another chip for flight control," Gao Peng said. The dual-core design is also conducive to future expansion and upgrades.
Of course, price is also one of the reasons why Gao Peng considered Lianxin. He said that Thunderbolt sells Qualcomm motherboards for $125 a piece, or about 1,000 yuan, while Leadcore’s corresponding products are $60, half the price. comparatively competitive advantage. According to Gao Peng, the founder of Borui Yunfei, Zero Smart Control recently started to cooperate with Leadcore in July and August this year in addition to Qualcomm chips. In addition to technical reasons, Qualcomm's solution is also one of the reasons.
However, what really makes Yang Jianjun vigilant is not these upstream chip manufacturers, nor DJI, nor a solution provider like Thundersoft, but a smartphone manufacturer that is currently making a lot of money. Smartphones have cameras, CPUs, memory, and GPS antennas. Many things are in common with drones. Mobile phone manufacturers have natural advantages in making drones. At the same time, they have very strong supply chain advantages.
"After Xiaomi (Feimi) rushed in, there was no grass wherever he went. I would rather stand with DJI." Yang Jianjun said meaningfully. In fact, according to Tencent Technology, Xiaomi's ecological enterprise Feimi has found Qualcomm, and the two parties will cooperate to launch new drones in the next step. With Qualcomm, the development process for a drone could be shortened to four or five months. If the upstream core is in the hands of foreign companies in the future, and if drones are homogenized, the situation in the smartphone market may be repeated in the future.
Card position aerial robot
For the Dobby UAV, Yang Jianjun is still iterating rapidly. The second-generation product has better heat dissipation, the image is clearer after increasing the shock absorption, and the flight time is also improved compared to the first-generation 9-minute time. In addition, he wants to add some new features one after another. "For example, the artificial intelligence module makes it more intelligent," said Yang Jianjun. In terms of intelligent recognition, it can not only recognize faces, but also more complex things, such as cars, human bodies, and even gestures, and automatically avoid obstacles.
Even, drones can do what Zhang Shutao, vice president of Thundersoft, called a "personal cameraman", who can capture and shoot at will. Even verbal communication with people is not impossible.
"Pointing to a house on the mobile phone, the drone can fly to the real house by itself, all these can be achieved," Yang Jianjun said. In the industry, some high-end drone products have already implemented this function. On the next generation of products, using "820 chips to become more powerful and smarter, including autonomous flight, these algorithms are installed."
And an order-of-magnitude sale would put Zero in a good position. Users are frequently used, "it will become the point where we collect a lot of information. It is used more frequently than the big drones and gets more data. Who is the best at artificial intelligence? In fact, it is like Google, because it Has the most data in the world.”
Because of this possibility, portable drone companies such as Zero Smart Control and Zero Zero Infinite are favored by some large companies. Zero Smart Control financing has entered the B round, financing 150 million yuan. The lead investors are Cinda Guocui and Minghang Capital, and investment companies under Qualcomm also joined. In addition, Tencent Technology was informed that Samsung also intends to invest in Zero Intelligent Control, and the relevant procedures are being processed.
Smartphones are divided into three parts: communication, imaging, and operating systems. Drones are basically communications, imaging and operating systems, plus a flight control. Smartphones were many years ago, such as when Android was just starting, few people could really predict how much convenience a smartphone would bring to people a few years later, and become a new computing platform after personal computers. Now drones, if they can gather a large number of users, will gradually come up with a variety of different applications and scenarios to expand the market together.
"In fact, drones are like robots that can fly with propellers. In the future, this type of product can give humans a lot of room for imagination." Qualcomm Yan Chenwei said. In the future, as long as it is related to artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence in speech and artificial intelligence in computer image processing may be used in drones.
"The revolution has just begun, and it may turn into a big revolution," said Yan Chenwei. Like him, Yang Jianjun also believes that 2017 will be the first year of drone intelligence. Computer vision, artificial intelligence, etc. are developing rapidly, and they need an export. Drones may be such an export.
Original link: http://xw.qq.com/tech/20161125002231/TEC201611250022310H