The Evolution and Challenges of Low-Altitude Economy: Insights

from Experience in China

Yuyan Jin

School of Social Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, U.K.

Keywords: Low-Altitude Economy, Supply Chain Management, UAV Technology, Economic Development.

Abstract: As an emerging economic form, the low-altitude economy is rapidly developing in China and increasingly

demonstrates its broad application potential and economic value. This study provides a comprehensive

analysis of the trajectory of China's low-altitude economy, exploring its applications across various industries,

including drone technology, logistics, agricultural spraying, and geographic mapping. It delves into the

growth opportunities driven by policy support, technological advancements, and market demand. The study

also identifies the main challenges currently faced by the low-altitude economy, such as the absence of

specific regulations, insufficient infrastructure, talent shortages, and technological constraints, offering

targeted policy recommendations and improvement measures. By establishing a systematic educational and

training system, strengthening regulatory frameworks and technological innovation, and optimizing the

industrial chain structure, China's low-altitude economy is poised for broader development prospects.

Additionally, the study discusses the potential future impacts of the low-altitude economy, including its role

in advancing the modern service industry and contributing to national economic growth.

1 INTRODUCTION

With the continuous progress of science and

technology and the rapid development of the

economy, the respective emerging economic forms

are endless. The low-altitude economy is one of them,

and it has gradually gained global attention and

importance in recent years. China, the world's largest

developing country, is also enthusiastically

developing the low-altitude economy industry (Zhu et

al., 2017; Jiang et al., 2023; Guan et al., 2024).

Low altitude economy is a new type of economic

form, with flight activities using human-crewed and

uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) in low altitude

airspace (usually below 1,000 meters) that can be

extended to no more than 3,000 meters according to

actual needs as the core, leading to the integration and

development of related fields such as research and

development, production, sales, the operation of

infrastructure construction related to low altitude

flight activities, flight protection, and derivative

comprehensive services, etc. (Xueqiu, 2024a). This

economic model reflects the important role of low-

altitude airspace in promoting the economy and

https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2913-3738

foretells the prospects of the wide application of low-

altitude flight activities.

The development of a low-altitude economy has

led to the rise of a series of related industries. From

the perspective of the industrial chain, it includes low-

altitude aircraft manufacturing, low-altitude

operation services, low-altitude infrastructure &

supporting security and other directions (Xueqiu,

2024b). The low-altitude economy contains the

traditional general aviation industry. It is also

strongly associated with a number of fields, such as

drone technology, logistics and distribution,

agricultural spraying, photography and filming,

geographic mapping, forest firefighting, electric

power inspection, emergency rescue, security

monitoring, and so on (Shangyou News, 2024).

The low-altitude economy has made significant

breakthroughs in several key areas in recent years,

which are not only reflected in the continuous

improvement of the top-level design but also cover

the strengthening of regulations and certification as

well as the extensive expansion of application

scenarios, strongly promoted the development of the

entire industrial chain. Since the low-altitude

Jin, Y.

The Evolution and Challenges of Low-Altitude Economy: Insights from Experience in China.

DOI: 10.5220/0013228700004558

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Modern Logistics and Supply Chain Management (MLSCM 2024), pages 32-36

ISBN: 978-989-758-738-2

economy was formally written into "the Outline of the

National Comprehensive Three-dimensional

Transportation Network Plan" in 2021, the low-

altitude economy has received a high degree of

attention in China. The concept of a "low-altitude

economy" has been incorporated into the national

plan for the first time, laying a solid foundation for

developing the low-altitude economy in the future

(Vzkoo, 2024).

In 2024, the government work reports of more

than 20 provincial-level administrative regions

explicitly set policy objectives for developing a low-

altitude economy and general aviation. Shenzhen

took the lead in introducing "the Regulation on

Promotion of Low Altitude Economy Industry" in the

Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which has been

officially implemented since 1 February 2024. The

Regulation aims to promote the development of the

low-altitude economy industry in all aspects by

establishing a coordination mechanism for industry

development, optimizing infrastructure construction

and operation management, constructing a low-

altitude flight service platform, and broadening the

application areas of the industry. In addition, for the

pain points and difficulties in developing the low-

altitude economy industry, the regulations also

involve several institutional innovations to ensure the

low-altitude economy can develop safely and stably

(Vzkoo, 2024).

The Chinese government attaches great

importance to and strongly supports the development

of the low-altitude economy. By the end of 2023,

there were 689 general aviation enterprises, 3,173

registered general aviation aircraft, and 451 general

aviation airports in China, with a cumulative one-year

flight time of 1,357,000 hours. The measured data

shows that the scale of China's low-altitude economy

has exceeded 500 billion yuan in 2023 and is expected

to reach 2 trillion yuan in 2030, seven years later.

2 CASE DESCRIPTION

The tracking of light aircraft at low altitude can be

enhanced by using a smartphone as an aircraft

detector, and improving flight safety.

There are many ways to track low-flying or

unmanned aerial vehicles, and the most common way

is radar. However, radar is affected by ground

conditions, which make communication between the

pilot and the communicator impossible, and the

research of Lilly B, Cetinkaya D, and Durak U

suggests practical solutions for pilots and radio

operators. This approach allows for a clearer

understanding of air transport and the ability to

transmit the vehicle's position to emergency services

in the event of an emergency. This approach utilizes

a smartphone to capture orientation information such

as longitude, warp and altitude, and instantly displays

present and past flight data through the expert version

of Google Earth. The software on the platform can

search for relevant data about the aircraft, including

pictures of the aircraft, branding, flight data, calls, etc.

The ease of use of the system was verified through

acceptance testing. What may be done in the future is

the support for more intelligent devices and

platforms, preferably using NoSQL or instant

databases on cloud servers, but MySQL is preferred.

The algorithms presented in this study apply to the

tracking of manned light aircraft, but it is possible to

test them on ultralight vehicles, especially on micro-

unmanned aerial vehicles. Security aspects should

also be considered to prevent the input of illegal

information (Lilly et al., 2021).

Federated learning is closely related to 6G

networks, which can ensure the sharing of

information between different terminals while doing

so in a way that protects the user's privacy. Through

information interaction and cooperation among

multiple terminals, federated learning can form a set

of common patterns that are effective and secure for

all participants. However, due to the limited

computing resources of most mobile terminals, it is

still difficult to effectively train machine learning

models with high computing performance (Fan et al.,

2022).

The research of Fan Wen, Wei Xi, Yu Shuai and

Chen Xu relies on heterogeneous networks based on

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) technology. It

enables multiple unmanned aerial vehicles to act as

airborne edge servers to move around in a specified

location freely, acquire current dynamic information,

and ensure the timeliness of the data through local

joint learning (Fan et al., 2022).

In this study, to address the problems in the joint

training of multiple UAVs, Fan Wen, Wei Xi, Yu

Shuai and Chen Xu investigated the three aspects of

data updating degree, communication overhead and

modeling performance. They focused on the flight

trajectory of the UAVs, the communication mode

with the terminals, and the collaboration mode. Fan

Wen, Wei Xi, Yu Shuai and Chen Xu also proposed

a multi-agent deep augmented learning method with

divisible multi-agents for solving the continuous

online decision-making problem during multi-UAV

joint training for collaboration and control (Fan et al.,

2022).

The Evolution and Challenges of Low-Altitude Economy: Insights from Experience in China

Simulation experiments by Fan Wen, Wei Xi, Yu

Shuai and Chen Xu showed that the federated

learning approach based on edge computing can

effectively improve the effectiveness and safety of

machine learning. Federated learning is not only

applicable to situations with different data

distributions but also to environments that produce

rapid changes (Fan et al., 2022).

3 FORMULATION OF ISSUES

AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Low-altitude economy is an emerging economic

field. Any emerging economic field needs to rely on

policy guidance, technology support and capital

injection. This paper will expand on these three basic

elements and present eight problems faced by the

low-altitude economy in China. Only when these

three elements are combined can they form a solid

foundation for developing China's low-altitude

economy. Zhou Shuguang, a deputy to the National

People's Congress and chairman of Xi'an Kewei

Aerospace Science and Technology Group, has

suggested the preparation and introduction of a

national strategic development plan for low-altitude

economy which can be used to clarify the

development goals, strategic tasks, technological

innovations, supportive policies, and coordinating

mechanisms to make key breakthroughs in the areas

of industrial development, market application,

airspace reform, basic support, and operational

services (Shangyou News, 2024).

China lacks the support and protection of laws and

regulations in developing a low-altitude economy.

China still needs to have national laws and

regulations for a low-altitude economy. There needs

to be more legal basis for developing a low-altitude

economy. General aviation enterprises can't research

and develop improvements for low-altitude flight.

As far as general aviation is concerned, there are

problems such as lack of professional talents, lack of

industry norms, and weak operational capacity of

enterprises. For an industry that has just emerged and

is being vigorously developed by the country, the

number of Chinese aviation practitioners is relatively

small regarding professional talents. Even if AI can

perform part of the work, it still needs more staff to

monitor and command. In addition, the low-altitude

economy industry needs more systematic

professional training, and the rate of output talents

needs to be more stable, resulting in the industry not

developing rapidly.

At present, the areas that vigorously develop a

low-altitude economy are all urban rather than rural

areas. Even though there are examples of pesticides

spreading by airplanes in rural areas, the price is high.

There needs to be a systematic supporting industry in

rural areas, which can't be fed back to the general

aviation enterprises efficiently.

Low-altitude tourism is a branch of the low-

altitude economy, as an innovative form of tourism, it

is still in its infancy in China. Even though China is

now aware of its huge market potential, this potential

has yet to be released. Against the background that

most people are unfamiliar with low-altitude tourism,

even with the attraction of viewing the ground from a

unique perspective in the air, the market for low-

altitude tourism still needs to expand rapidly. On the

other hand, from the perspective of market operation,

the current low-altitude tourism in China still needs

to improve in marketing and branding, with the lack

of sufficient attraction and competitiveness attracting

more consumers (Huice Website, 2024).

All civil aircraft must pass an airworthiness

assessment, and in the case of the use of electric

vertical take-off and landing vehicles (EVTOLs),

obtaining type certification issued by the Civil

Aviation Administration (CAA) is a necessary

condition for participation in urban air traffic.

However, there is no uniform regulation in China.

eVTOLs, a new type of spacecraft, are not regarded

as a specific type of airworthiness validation, while

they can not be categorized as traditional helicopters

or fixed-wing aircraft. Currently, the civil aviation

agencies of different countries still need to have

unified airworthiness certification standards for this

type of vehicle, and only Europe has developed

unified evaluation standards and compliance methods

for small VTOLs (electrically powered vertical take-

off and landing vehicles) (Jnhn.gov, 2024).

There is still a big gap between China and the

world's advanced level in aerospace science and

technology. However, although there is a small gap

between China, the United States, and Europe in the

emerging market of low-altitude economy, China still

has to rely on other countries for core technologies

such as engines for aerospace. ENGINeUS is a world-

famous motor manufacturer; Safran produces motors

with a maximum power of up to 750 kW (upgradable

to 1 MW). However, Wolong Electrodynamics, the

largest Chinese domestic aerospace electric drive

company, can only provide a power density of 2-30

kW (2-30 kW) for 1-2 seat commercial unmanned

aircraft (eVTOL). Wollongong Electric Drives is

developing 50-175 kW electric vehicles for larger

four-passenger requirements (Jnhn.gov, 2024).

MLSCM 2024 - International Conference on Modern Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Existing automotive power batteries are not

directly applicable to the eVTOL sector. Due to its

peculiarities, the aeronautics sector leads to a high

demand for the performance of lithium-ion batteries

in electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles

(eVTOL). The eVTOL for urban air traffic, on the

other hand, should have an energy density of at least

400 Wh/kg. In contrast, the batteries for new energy

vehicles have an energy density of about 200 Wh/kg,

which is half that of the eVTOL. The energy density

of mature eVTOL batteries in the current market is

only 285Wh/kg, much lower than that of aviation

fuel. So, it can only meet the short-range flight

requirements of small all-electric vehicles (Jnhn.gov,

2024).

4 SOLUTIONS

To promote the rapid development of the low-altitude

economy, China needs to formulate a comprehensive

and in-depth top-level plan to strategically plan the

entire industry and ensure the scientific and forward-

looking nature of investment decisions. China needs

to provide necessary support policies for regions with

good foundations and development potential,

avoiding low-end duplication of construction, waste

of resources and over-saturation of the market

(Jnhn.gov, 2024).

China should also pay attention to the

agglomeration effect of the leading enterprises in the

UAV industry and their industrial agglomerations.

Through the leading role of these leading enterprises,

the deep integration and interaction of the innovation,

industrial, capital, and talent chains are effectively

promoted. This economic ecosystem is like a vibrant

"rainforest", which accelerates the transformation of

scientific and technological achievements while

stimulating the innovative thinking of researchers

(Jnhn.gov, 2024).

China must take more active measures to increase

support for the low-altitude economy. By formulating

and improving relevant laws and regulations, the

government can provide financial support and

effectively reduce the burden on enterprises through

tax reductions and exemptions to reduce financing

costs and solve financing problems. China can also

encourage the participation of private capital, such as

establishing venture funds and guarantee funds,

which can provide financial support for start-ups and

help them reduce entrepreneurial risks and accelerate

growth.

To promote the rapid development of the low-

altitude economy, China needs to establish a low-

altitude flight-related education and training system

and strengthen the management and regulation of

staff. The government should encourage social forces

to participate in the training of general aviation

personnel, support enterprises to strengthen

technological innovation, and encourage private

drone enthusiasts and aviation flight enthusiasts to

join the low-altitude flight industry and train.

In terms of technology, researchers should be

encouraged to conduct research, and the government

can allocate funds to set up research funds to

encourage technicians to research and study. The

government can also absorb more graduates of related

majors from colleges in developed countries, have

friendly communications with leading companies in

the drone industry, and carry out worldwide

exhibitions in the low-altitude flight industry to

integrate new technologies.

5 FUTURE PROSPECT

The low-altitude economy is a new industry that is

different from traditional industries mainly because it

combines aviation technology and other related

technologies. The outlook of China's low-altitude

economy shows positive development prospects and

wide application potential. "The Outline of the

National Comprehensive Three-dimensional

Transportation Network Plan" was released in 2021,

which mentions the development of a low-altitude

economy. With the support of national policies and

the deepening of low-altitude airspace management

reform, the low-altitude economy is regarded as one

of the strategic emerging industries, which is

expected to show vigorous vitality and successful

rapid development in the coming years.

With the gradual opening of low-altitude airspace,

the economy industry chain is being formed and

gradually improved. From general aviation to related

service industry, manufacturing industry

infrastructure operation and other related industries,

it proves that low altitude economy can drive the

comprehensive development of many fields. The low-

altitude economy includes research and development,

production, sales, infrastructure construction and

operation of low-altitude vehicles, flight protection,

aircraft maintenance, and derived comprehensive

services (Xueqiu, 2024b). Low-altitude vehicle

manufacturing produces raw materials such as steel,

aluminum alloy, carbon fiber and components such as

chips, batteries, boards, motors, gyros, sensors, etc.

Low-altitude infrastructure and supporting security,

such as remote control, data analysis, system

The Evolution and Challenges of Low-Altitude Economy: Insights from Experience in China

monitoring, and so on, are the most basic security

features of the low-altitude flight industry. Low-

altitude flight, with its unique radiance for related

industries, provides many employment opportunities

and increases demand for aviation manufacturing

industrial raw materials and product production. The

application of low altitude economy can also be

combined with logistics and distribution, agricultural

spraying, photography shooting, geographic

mapping, forest firefighting, electric power

inspection, emergency rescue, security monitoring

and many other fields, showing its great versatility

(Shangyou News, 2024).

In this industrial chain, low-altitude vehicles'

development, production, and sale are the most

important. Growing market demand and

technological advances have brought about a variety

of new types of vehicles, such as drones and

rotorcraft, which will be widely used in the future in

various fields, such as air logistics, emergency rescue

and recreational flights. The infrastructure built

around low-altitude vehicles is also improving, from

airports to take-off and landing points to maintenance

bases, each of which provides a solid foundation for

the prosperity of China's low-altitude economy

(Xueqiu, 2024b).

6 CONCLUSION

The low-altitude economy is an important part of the

modern service industry. The development of the

low-altitude economy is conducive to promoting the

development of China's modern service industry,

which can drive the development of related industries

and promote the growth of the national economy.

Through the study of related information, it is found

that China's current low-altitude economy is in a

period of rapid development. However, there are still

some problems in the process of low altitude

economy development, such as the relevant policies

and regulations are not perfect, the distribution of

infrastructure construction is not uniform, the lack of

relevant talents, technology still needs to be

improved, the industry is not in place to regulate, and

so on. With the continuous development and growth

of China's general aviation industry, constructing a

low-altitude economy requires dealing with complex

and diverse data. The use of big data technology to

conduct in-depth research and exploration of the

general aviation industry can provide decision-

making support and new development ideas for the

general aviation industry. In the process of general

aviation industry development, big data technology

can integrate and analyze all kinds of information

involved in the process of general aviation airport

layout, low altitude airspace management, airport

construction and operation, and formulate reasonable

and effective strategies for decision-making, to

realize the effective use and management of low

altitude airspace resources.

REFERENCES

Jiang, Y., Li, X., Zhu, G., Li, H., Deng, J., & Shi, Q., 2023.

6G Non-Terrestrial networks enabled low-altitude

economy: Opportunities and challenges. arXiv preprint

arXiv:2311.09047.

Guan, X., Shi, H., Xu, D., Zhang, B., Wei, J., & Chen, J.,

2024. The exploration and practice of low-altitude

airspace flight service and traffic management in

China. Green Energy and Intelligent

Transportation, 3(2), 100149.

Zhu, Y., Jia, M., & Shi, Y., 2017. Analysis on Current

Development Situations, the Key Issues and

Countermeasures of China's General Aviation

Industry. Procedia engineering, 174, 871-877.

Xueqiu., 2024a. China Low Altitude Economy Research

Report 2024. Retrieved July 2, 2024, from https://xue

qiu.com/4052944443/283287751

Xueqiu., 2024b. China Low Altitude Economy Industry

Chain Panorama & Company List 2024.. Retrieved July

2, 2024, from https://xueqiu.com/9615908983

/292943946

Shangyou News., 2024. Focus on low-altitude economy.

Retrieved July 2, 2024, from https://baij

iahao.baidu.com/s?id=1800303707006181436

Vzkoo., 2024. Low Altitude Economy 2024 Thematic

Report: Technology Convergence, Market Potential

and Regulatory Challenges. Retrieved July 2, 2024,

from

https://m.vzkoo.com/read/2024050759b027a1dd1c1b0

15b0f9eaa.html

Lilly, B., Cetinkaya, D., & Durak, U., 2021. Tracking light

aircraft with smartphones at low altitudes.

Information, 12(3), 105.

Fan, W., Wei, X., Yu, X. & Chen, X., 2022. Data freshness-

driven collaborative UAV federated learning intelligent

decision optimization. Journal of Electronics and

Information (09), 2994-3003.

Huice Website., 2024. Problems and challenges in the

development of China's low-altitude economy industry.

Retrieved July 2, 2024, from https://baijiahao.

baidu.com/s?id=1796047911585697325&wfr=spider

&for=pc

Jnhn.gov., 2024. Status of development of China's low-

altitude economy industry. Retrieved July 2, 2024, from

https://www.jnhn.gov.cn/art/2024/5/22/art_31697_279

3040.html

MLSCM 2024 - International Conference on Modern Logistics and Supply Chain Management