Editor's note: A Shenzhen-based industry-level drone maker is spearheading a technological revolution that would open up new vistas for the industry.

He has devoted himself to developing unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, for 10 years and witnessed the explosive development of the sector.

But Lu Zhihui believes there are still bottlenecks impeding the wider application of drones in industry and has dedicated himself to bringing a new technological revolution to the sector.

The drone industry underwent its first technological revolution between 2008 and 2010, when single-rotor drones were replaced by multi-rotor ones, said Lu, founder of MicroMultiCopter Aero Technology Co Ltd, a Shenzhen-based company specializing in making industry-level drones.

Compared with single-rotor drones, the new type is safer and more cost-effective. "Normally, it would cost several million yuan to develop a single-rotor drone and there are over 300 components in it. But for multi-rotor drones, a few hundred thousand yuan of investment is enough. Moreover, the structure of the device is simpler, with less than 30 components, which makes it easy to operate," Lu explained.

The technological breakthrough injected new life into the drone industry and more people around the world got to know about and began to play with drones. "Consumer-level drones came into the spotlight after the first revolutionary technological breakthrough, marked by the emergence of DJI," Lu said, referring to the Shenzhen-based peer that accounts for 70 percent of the global consumer drone market.

The development was also hailed by industry players, as multi-rotor drones can be used as an efficient tool in a wide range of fields, like agriculture, land survey, firefighting, police surveillance, and so on.

But a key problem is they can only work for a short period of time, making completion of some tasks impossible, pointed out Sun Mingjian, drone expert and deputy head of the School of Information and Electrical Engineering at the Weihai campus of the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT).

Currently, consumer-level multi-rotor drones can only fly for about 30 minutes while industry-level ones can do so for about an hour.

"Long duration is the precondition of solving all the difficulties met by industry-level drones," Sun said. "Once this problem is solved, application of industry-level drones can be greatly expanded."

That is what Lu and his team members resolved to focus on. After one year of intense research and development, MicroMultiCopter on April 10 unveiled the world's first multi-rotor drone propelled by hydrogen fuel.

The drone, HYDrone-1800, is able to fly for 273 minutes, or four hours and 33 minutes, and can keep working under conditions ranging from fire, rain and dust.

"The breakthrough in duration provides more possibilities for drones to play their part in electric power line stringing, oil exploration, anti-terrorism activities and so forth, all of which require long hours of operation," Lu noted.

A 2007 graduate of HIT, Lu is a typical "technology guy", a usually reticent man dressed casually in a white T-shirt and jeans. But when it comes to the development of drones, Lu can be called a perfectionist.

He recalled the time when he made a firm decision to scrap the previous design for the HYDrone-1800 and start again from the beginning to make another prototype, because the drone did not meet his expectations.

"My aim was to make it fly for at least four hours. But the drone we made at the time could only work for three hours and 55 minutes. Although it was only a five-minute gap, I considered it a disqualified product," said the 32-year-old entrepreneur.

"That was a tough decision, as we had only two months left before the official debut of the product. The improvement also cost us nearly a million yuan."

But Lu's persistence paid off, as the civil drone market is expected to see substantial growth within the next several years. According to a report from Beijing-based consultancy Analysys International, the Chinese civil drone market is expected to expand 181 percent from 3.95 billion yuan ($610 million) this year to 11.09 billion yuan by 2018, with industry-level drones making up a big part of it.

"The industry-level drone sector has great potential worth exploring," noted Shu Zhenjie, executive secretary-general of the UAS Standardization Association, the industrial regulatory body for drones, also called unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

"At the present time, each drone maker shares a part of the market. Unlike the consumer-level drone market dominated by DJI, there is currently no single player leading the industry-level drone market."

Shu notes that it is important for drone makers to communicate deeply with customers and truly understand their demand.

"From the aspect of product (development), it would still be some time before the industry-level drone market could form (an economy of) scale."

Meanwhile, Lu is highly optimistic about the future of Chinese drone makers. "Chinese manufacturers stepped into the multi-rotor drone industry at almost the same time as their foreign counterparts. We are standing at the same starting line. Moreover, we have a sound industry chain here in Guangdong province, which is one of our advantages."

He is also fully prepared for future competition. "When more players enter the drone industry, it means that the market is going to grow explosively. I am looking forward to that," Lu said.

sally@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 04/14/2016 page9)