rpbooks Chapter 141 The Shocking Xiangyu Drone
Chapter 141 The Shocking Xiangyu Drone
"Is this Hongyuan Feiniao's G1 industrial gateway?"
Chen Hongda, CEO of Xiangyu Drones, looked at the silver-gray device wrapped in black anti-static foam on the table and was taken aback.
The first impression this device gives is that it is exquisite.
It's not the kind of sophistication found in consumer electronics, but rather the cold, hard, rigorous, and meticulous sophistication unique to industrial equipment. Every ridge has been precisely CNC-cut, and the heat dissipation fins on the aluminum alloy casing are evenly arranged with a matte anodized finish.
Reaching out to pick up the G1 gateway, Chen Hongda weighed it in his hand—less than two pounds, much lighter than he had expected.
"Put it in."
Following Chen Hongda's instructions, He Jun, the Vice President of Technology, personally connected the G1 gateway to 48V PoE power.
Three seconds later, the industrial touchscreen on the front lit up, and a line of simple white text appeared on the dark gray startup screen:
"Feiniao Industrial Gateway System v0.9.1 — Connecting everything, protecting the blue sky."
Upon seeing this line of text, Chen Hongda smiled helplessly.
Speaking of Flybird, there's one thing that makes people both love and hate it: all their hardware devices must run the Flybird ecosystem and are only compatible with the H-Link communication protocol.
This G1 industrial gateway is no exception. According to the accompanying technical documentation, the G1 gateway can only manage drones and sensor devices that support the H-Link protocol.
In other words, if Xiangyu's drones want to access the G1 gateway's management system, they must integrate an H-Link communication module into the flight control system.
This is also one of the reasons why many companies hesitate to join the Flying Bird Industry Alliance.
After all, of the 371 companies that initially expressed interest in cooperation, nearly 30% backed out after learning that the H-Link protocol had to be used.
Ultimately, only 44 companies were willing to accept both the high membership fees and the binding requirements of the H-Link protocol.
"Edge AI inference engine, concurrent management of fifty drones, sensor data fusion, fault prediction, dynamic route optimization..."
He Jun flipped through the technical documents while reciting the core functions of the G1. The list of functions did look impressive.
Although he still harbored resentment over the two million strategic membership fee, as someone with a technical background, he had to admit that if these functional parameters were accurate, the G1 gateway's technological sophistication far surpassed any similar product on the market.
With this in mind, He Jun eagerly opened his laptop, connected to the G1 gateway's management backend via Ethernet, and prepared to conduct a practical test.
He also had the technical team move three Xiangyu X7 power inspection drones to the test platform on the company rooftop—these three drones had already been flashed with the firmware of the H-Link communication module.
"First, test the response latency of standalone management."
At He Jun's command, the test engineer controlled the first X7 drone to take off, while transmitting the flight data to the G1 gateway in real time.
The data started jumping on the management backend interface.
He Jun stared at the delay indicator, his eyes widening instantly.
"Fifteen milliseconds?!"
He practically jumped up from his chair.
From the moment the drone sends out sensor data to the G1 gateway completing edge AI inference and returning instructions, the latency of the entire loop is only fifteen milliseconds!
What does this number mean?
He Jun knew it all too well.
The ground station management system currently used by Xiangyu has a data processing loop latency of 90 milliseconds. They previously tested DJI's FlightCore 2.0 solution, which had a latency between 70 and 80 milliseconds.
Fifteen milliseconds versus ninety milliseconds is a difference of six times!
"Impossible..." He Jun muttered to himself, "Let's test it again!"
The second test had a delay of sixteen milliseconds.
The third time, fourteen milliseconds.
The data is outrageously stable.
"Testing three machines concurrently!"
He Jun's voice was trembling slightly. Three X7 drones took off simultaneously, simulating a formation flight scenario for power line inspection. The G1 gateway simultaneously received flight control data, IMU data, GPS data, and laser radar data from the three drones, performing real-time fusion calculations.
On the management backend, the status of the three drones is presented in the form of a holographic heat map—battery temperature, motor speed, vibration spectrum, wind speed compensation coefficient... Each piece of data is refreshed at a frequency of milliseconds.
The latency for three machines operating concurrently is 19 milliseconds.
He Jun remained silent for a while, then turned to look at Chen Hongda with a complicated expression.
"How is it?" Chen Hongda asked.
"Our current ground station management system has a latency of 140 milliseconds for three concurrent drones. According to the data released at their launch event, DJI's FlightCore 2.0 solution should have a latency of around 120 milliseconds for three concurrent drones."
He Jun paused, then said in a somewhat hoarse voice:
"G1...19 milliseconds."
Chen Hongda raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything.
He Jun continued operating the system, opening the AI fault prediction module of the G1 gateway. This module is a key feature highlighted in the technical documentation—by analyzing the vibration spectrum and temperature change trends of the drone's motors, it issues an early warning 30 seconds to 5 minutes before a fault occurs.
He Jun retrieved a section of motor data recorded by the X7-03 unit during yesterday's test and imported it into G1's AI prediction model.
Three seconds later, an orange alert popped up:
"X7-03号机·3号电机·轴承磨损预警·置信度87%·建议降落检修时间窗口：预计12分钟后进入危险阈值。"
He Jun was stunned.
Because the maintenance team did find a problem with bearing wear in motor number 3 of unit X7-03 after yesterday's test, and he had just seen the maintenance report this morning.
In other words, G1's AI prediction model can determine the wear trend of motor bearings using only three minutes of historical data, with an accuracy rate of up to 87%.
"Does DJI have this feature?" Chen Hongda asked.
"No," He Jun shook his head. "FlightCore 2.0's core selling points are multi-aircraft collaboration and route planning; it doesn't have this real-time fault prediction function based on edge AI."
He paused, then added, "And even if DJI wanted to, it couldn't reach the G1's level in a short time. This isn't just a matter of computing power, but also a matter of algorithm models and training data. Hongyuan Flying Bird's S1 module has accumulated a large amount of real flight data, which is the foundation for training AI prediction models."
"So the H-Link protocol is not just a communication standard," Chen Hongda said slowly, "it's more like a data collection channel. All devices connected to H-Link will have their flight data flowed back into the bird's ecosystem, feeding back into their AI models."
"That's right." He Jun nodded. "This is one of the reasons why G1's edge AI inference latency can reach 15 milliseconds. Their model is trained with massive amounts of real data, resulting in high inference accuracy. Therefore, it doesn't require complex post-processing to correct the results, naturally leading to low latency."
Chen Hongda was silent for a moment, then said something that He Jun didn't expect:
Do you still think that two million was a waste of money?
He Jun opened his mouth, but ultimately shook his head with a wry smile.
"Next, we'll compile the G1 test report," Chen Hongda stood up, his voice brimming with barely suppressed excitement. "I'm going to present this report at the Southern Power Grid power inspection bidding conference next month. With the G1-enabled solution, we're confident we'll win that bid!"
……
Meanwhile, another G1 engineering prototype, which was being expedited to Bangkok via SF Airlines, was being unsealed by staff from Tianyu Aerospace.
Compared to Xiangyu UAV's impressive office building and professional testing grounds, Tianyu Aerospace Technology appears quite modest.
Their "office" was two rented tin shacks in an agricultural park on the outskirts of Bangkok, and their "testing ground" was the 200-acre rice paddy next door.
Joining the Flying Bird Industry Alliance as a strategic member is a desperate gamble by Lu Ming, the founder of Tianyu Aerospace Technology.
In the Southeast Asian agricultural plant protection market, Tianyu Aerospace has been repeatedly defeated by DJI's T series, with its market share falling from a peak of 8% to less than 2%, and its funds are only enough to last for another three months.
So Lu Ming decided to make one last desperate attempt. He contacted Hongyuan Feiniao and not only signed up for two million strategic memberships, but also paid an extra technical adaptation fee to have Hongyuan Feiniao's engineers perform in-depth H-Link protocol adaptation for their agricultural drones.
The final adapted solution was named "Farmland Guardian" by Lu Ming – a G1 gateway plus six Tianyu T-6 agricultural drones adapted with H-Link can automatically complete the agricultural protection operation of 200 acres of farmland without human intervention.
Farmland guardians, protectors, protectors of farmers!
This solution has a core advantage that no competing product on the market currently possesses—the multi-machine collaborative management capability of the G1 gateway.
The flight routes, pesticide application rates, wind speed compensation, and obstacle avoidance coordination of the six drones are all centrally scheduled by the G1 gateway.
Farmers don't need to know any drone operation skills. They just need to draw the work area on the G1's touch screen, press the start button, and six drones will automatically take off in formation, like six precision combs, combing through the rice paddy row by row.
At this time, DJI was still relying on FlightCore 2.0 to promote their stand-alone intelligent solutions, but what they didn't know was that in the Southeast Asian market, which they considered a solid foundation, a hungry wolf was sharpening its teeth.
……
The following day, a test report caused a sensation within Xiangyu UAV, while another field demonstration was quietly taking place in the suburbs of Bangkok.
Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand, is one of the most important agricultural production areas in northeastern Thailand.
"Guardians of the farmland! Guardians of the farmland! Guardians of the farmers!"
Beside a golden rice paddy, Tianyu Aerospace's sales staff were introducing this brand-new plant protection solution to the farmers who were watching, speaking fluent Thai.
Several Thai farmers, dressed in loose cotton shirts, looked curiously at the small silver-gray box and the six neatly arranged white drones next to it, their faces full of confusion.
Most of them previously used DJI T40 drones, with one drone and one pilot, capable of covering a maximum of 400 acres per day. Hiring a professional pilot would cost about 15 baht per acre for crop protection.
For farmers in Nakhon Ratchasima province who often own thousands of acres of rice paddies, the cost of crop protection alone is a considerable expense each year.
"How is your plan different from DJI's?" a dark-skinned middle-aged farmer asked in Thai.
"Let me show you."
As they spoke, the technicians from Tianyu Aerospace Technology activated the G1 gateway on site.
The touchscreen lights up, and the interface is surprisingly simple—it only has a satellite map of the farmland and a green "Start Operation" button.
The technician drew an area on the map with his finger, marked the operating parameters, and then pressed the button.
Six T-6 agricultural drones started their motors simultaneously, their propellers humming in unison. Then, like soldiers receiving a unified command, they took off in sequence at precise intervals, automatically forming a two-row, three-column operational formation.
All the farmers present widened their eyes in surprise.
"These...these six planes flew by themselves?"
"No pilots?"
"Fully automatic?!"
"With six planes working simultaneously, that means they can cultivate 2,400 acres a day!"
The scene was filled with incredulous gasps.
Twenty minutes later, the six drones completed the precise spraying of pesticides on fifty acres of rice fields, automatically returned to their launch point, and landed with an error of no more than ten centimeters.
G1网关的屏幕上弹出了完整的作业报告——施药覆盖率99.7%，每亩用药量误差±3%，作业耗时19分42秒。
The dark-skinned middle-aged farmer walked to the G1 gateway, stared at the data on the screen for a while, then turned and asked a question that everyone was concerned about:
"How much is this set?"
"The complete solution—one G1 gateway plus six T-6 drones—would cost approximately 1.8 million Thai baht," Lu Ming personally quoted the price.
The scene was quiet for a few seconds.
One million eight hundred thousand Thai baht, which is approximately 360,000 yuan.
This price wasn't cheap, but savvy farmers quickly did the math—
One solution can cover 2,400 acres per day without hiring drone operators, reducing the cost of plant protection per acre from 15 baht to less than 3 baht.
For a farm with 2,000 acres of rice paddies, two rice harvests a year can save nearly 500,000 baht in plant protection costs alone.
In other words, you can break even in less than four years.
And this doesn't even include the labor and time costs saved.
The dark-skinned middle-aged farmer remained silent for a long time before taking out his phone from his pocket.
"I want two sets."
His voice was calm, but his eyes gleamed with shrewdness. He not only owned his own farm, but was also the head of the Nakhon Ratchasima Agricultural Cooperative, managing crop protection services for more than a dozen surrounding farms.
If this plan is as reliable as demonstrated, he could completely contract out the cooperative's plant protection business.
"And the router too." Lu Ming's lips curled up slightly.
No, it's not a router—it's an H-Link relay base station.
The G1 gateway's signal coverage radius is two kilometers, but large farms in Nakhon Ratchasima province often extend for more than five kilometers. To achieve full coverage, it is necessary to purchase additional H-Link repeater base stations to extend the signal range.
Each relay base station costs 4,000 RMB, with a profit margin exceeding 60%.
And this is only the hardware.
All drones managed by the G1 gateway must use a flight control system that supports the H-Link protocol. The flight control system used in the Tianyu T-6 is a deeply customized version based on the Feiniao S1 module.
In other words, if a farmer buys a G1 gateway, they must buy a matching H-Link drone; if they buy an H-Link drone, they must use the Feiniao S1 flight control module; and if they use the S1 module, the flight data will flow back to the Feiniao ecosystem to further train the AI model.
The gateway is the entry point, the drone is the conduit, and the sensor is the terminal.
Each layer is embedding customers more deeply into the bird's ecological closed loop.
Looking at the excited farmers in front of him, Lu Ming knew in his heart that he had made the right bet.
The strategic membership fee of two million yuan did not just buy a membership, but a key to unlock the Southeast Asian agricultural plant protection market.
While DJI is still using single-machine intelligence and price wars to defend its existing market share, Tianyu Aerospace has already opened up the incremental market for multi-machine collaboration with its G1 gateway.
This is a dimension that DJI's T series cannot currently cover.
……
That evening, Su Chen received two responses almost simultaneously.
A test report summary written by Chen Hongda of Xiangyu UAVs, spanning three pages, ended with a sentence:
"Mr. Su, the G1's performance has exceeded expectations. Our technical team has begun developing a power line inspection solution based on the G1, which we plan to use at the Southern Power Grid bidding conference next month. Also, will the official price and delivery time for the G1 be announced at the summit?"
Another message from Lu Ming of Tianyu Aerospace Science and Technology was just a WeChat voice message, his voice filled with barely concealed excitement:
"Mr. Su! The demonstration in Nakhon Ratchasima province is over! We received seven tentative orders on the spot! Seven! One of them is a cooperative president who wants two sets! Do you know what this means? There are over three hundred farms in Nakhon Ratchasima province. If word spreads—Mr. Su, I think we can talk about exclusive distribution rights in Southeast Asia!"
After reading the two feedback reports, Su Chen leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
The curve of the corners of the mouth is small, but deep.
The actual test results of the G1 engineering prototype proved that every parameter he repeatedly simulated in the virtual disassembly laboratory was reliable. Fifteen milliseconds of latency, 87% fault prediction accuracy, and six machines working together unattended—these are not numbers on a PowerPoint presentation, but real data from rooftops in Shenzhen and rice paddies in Thailand.
There are less than two weeks until the Bird Technology Summit on October 28th.
The first batch of MSI 220 chips will arrive next week.
The official version of the G1 gateway will then be equipped with full edge AI inference capabilities, and the latency will be further reduced from 15 milliseconds to less than 12 milliseconds.
Those who discuss on Zhihu whether "Hongyuan Feibiao is going to fail" will soon understand a truth—
Wars are never won on battlefields that they can see.
Su Chen picked up his phone and dialed Zhou Zhenguo's number.
"Mr. Zhou, the feedback from the G1 prototype test has been excellent. I'd like to make a slight adjustment to the summit agenda—I'd like you to give a ten-minute joint presentation on the application scenarios of the G1 gateway in large-scale drone logistics networks."
There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone, followed by Zhou Zhenguo's calm voice:
"Sure. But I have one condition—after the presentation, I must announce on the spot that Zhongyi Aviation has placed an additional order for fifty G1 gateways."
"make a deal."
After hanging up the phone, Su Chen looked at the Shenzhen night view outside the window and said softly:
"Let the storm rage on!"