By Brent Skorup and Will Gu
The Chinese aviation regulator (CAAC) set out guidelines in January 2019 for drone airworthiness standards. CAAC also released proposed plans in May 2019 for the 30-year development of the unmanned civilian aircraft industry. These proposed plans, while broad and general, highlight unmanned civilian aircraft—like drones and eVTOL—as one of future pillars of the Chinese economy, alongside areas like artificial intelligence and 5G. These pillars are the industries in which the Chinese government wants China to surpass Western countries’ capabilities in the “fourth industrial revolution.” The documents are available online and we’ve translated the documents. Below is a summary of highlights from that translation.
Industrial Plans for Unmanned Civil Aviation
Unlike the deliberative, industry-led development in most other countries, China is taking a more top-down approach in the May 2019 plans for unmanned civil aviation. The approach in the document roughly translates as “social + industrial management,” which CAAC lays out in five-year industrial plans. Both the January and May documents outline government action from building domestic supply chains to building drone infrastructure to implementing safety protocols to training personnel.
Some key dates from the January guidelines:
- Develop drone air worthiness standards by the end of 2019
- Create eVTOL requirements by the end of 2019
Some key dates from the 5-year plans released in May:
- Allocate segregated, low-altitude airspace by 2025
- Develop widespread commercial urban air mobility by 2035
- Develop world-class unmanned aerospace manufacturing by 2035
As a first step, CAAC is pressing ahead on national airworthiness standards because international standards have been slow to develop. A Chinese government database records over 280,000 registered drones for surveillance, agriculture, and delivery uses. There’s seems to be a real-time drone UTM system in place, but we’ve found little information about its capabilities. (Balancing competition, interoperability, and dynamic improvements in UTM will be a difficult task for aviation regulators worldwide.) According to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, drone operators are allocated spectrum at 800 MHz, 1.4 GHz, and 2.4 GHz.
JD.com, the largest retailer in China, has been doing trial deliveries since 2016. Another drone company, SF Express, received the first commercial drone delivery license in 2018, a year before the first US drones were approved for commercial delivery. SF Express drones can carry up to 30 kg (about 66 lbs).
The eVTOL industry in China appears far ahead of the US. EHang has been flying tourists in a 2-passenger autonomous eVTOL for a few months, and an unconfirmed report says the company sold 18 of their eVTOL aircraft this month. In the US, eVTOL operators like Uber likely won’t fly passengers in trial flights until 2023, at the earliest.
National airworthiness standards are needed, in part the Chinese regulators say, because of unsettling news of drones interfering with airports’ operations. However, the more pressing reason for developing standards is for Chinese industry to take the global lead in commercial unmanned aircraft. China aims to establish international norms and standards—a goal mentioned several times in both documents—similar to how China led the way attending global standards-body meetings and developing protocols in the 5G race.
The Path Ahead
One likely obstacle to autonomous urban air mobility and drone cargo development in China is the Chinese military. Most progress in these areas have to be coordinated with the military because of airspace use. According to 2017 Reuters reporting, local media estimate that the military controls about 80% of Chinese airspace. Chinese civil airspace is already somewhat crowded and integrating eVTOLs and other large drones will be a delicate process.
What stands out from these documents how China perceives itself as lagging in traditional commercial aviation compared to the United States and Europe. That perception seems to serve as a motivation to leapfrog the West and lead the globe in developing commercial drone, eVTOL, and urban air mobility standards and services. The Chinese government has ambitious plans and is moving quickly. In many ways they appear to be leading early but—like 5G—this race is a marathon, not a sprint.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.