Target drone-What You Must Know in This Industry

The entire process cycle of military target drones generally lasts 3 to 5 years, from early stage demand demonstration, program design, detailed iteration, component trial production, system integration, ground joint testing, prototype first flight, to finalization testing, state solidification, and small batch trial production. This research and development rhythm is the norm in the development of traditional military equipment. It relies on a rigorous project approval system, an iterative scientific research process, and strict test verification standards to ensure the stability, reliability, and adaptability of each field equipment. It is also the core basis for domestic target drone technology iterations and equipment updates in the past.However, the current target drone industry has jumped out of the traditional long-cycle R&D framework. A large number of private scientific and technological enterprises and emerging military industry teams are able to complete the plan finalization, structural manufacturing, avionics debugging, and complete aircraft test flight of a new target drone model in just half a year. They can quickly form a complete technical solution and prototype results, and even directly participate in equipment bidding projects of the military and military industrial groups. What is even more subversive to the industry's perception is that many start-up target drone companies that have only been established for one or two years have publicly displayed a variety of target drone products with different positioning and different indicators. Some models have directly reached batch delivery status and can be quickly adapted to actual combat scenarios such as military training, weapons testing, and confrontation drills.

There is even a more radical R&D rhythm in the industry: some teams have started series modification research and development simultaneously before the first prototype has completed full-state stability verification, fault zeroing and performance optimization. This R&D model of "testing, iterating, and expanding while testing" is almost impossible to achieve in the traditional military R&D system. It has also shocked many practitioners who have been deeply involved in the traditional military field for decades. They have raised core questions: How can the development efficiency of target drone companies in the new era be improved by several times or even tenfold?

What is particularly critical is that the emerging teams currently pouring into the target drone track are not "newcomers" with zero foundation in the industry. Most of them are core teams with mature military research and development experience. Most of the core personnel of this type of entrepreneurial teams and start-ups come from major military industrial institutes, leading drone companies, and aviation scientific research units. They have participated in the research and development, trial production, and field testing of standard target drones, cruise missiles, and military drones. They have complete engineering research and development experience, mature technical solutions, stable supply chain resources, a complete test flight support system, and even mature flight platform logic that has been verified by multiple rounds of tests and has zero faults. This mass spillover of talent and technology directly caused the domestic target drone industry to bid farewell to the development stage of "original R&D-led, long-term iteration and trial-and-error", and officially entered a new development cycle with engineering reuse speed and model iteration speed, which is far faster than the speed of original research and development from scratch. This is also the core underlying logic behind the current batch emergence of target drone models and their rapid implementation.

The core essence of the industry: most new target drones are not developed from scratch

If you want to understand the current phenomenon of rapid iteration in the target drone industry, you must first break the public’s inherent understanding of “new model development”. In the traditional military equipment research and development system, the research and development of a new aircraft means all-round innovation and breakthrough. It requires the completion of new aerodynamic layout design, new fuselage structure modeling, new avionics system adaptation, new flight control law writing, new power system matching, new electromagnetic compatibility design, and new mission system integration. Every link needs to be demonstrated from scratch, designed from scratch, and tested from scratch, which requires a huge amount of manpower, time, and financial costs, and there is a very high risk of R&D failure.

However, more than 90% of the new models of target drones on the market are not "new R&D equipment" in the traditional sense at all. They do not have disruptive technological innovation and system reconstruction. The core logic is the reuse of mature platforms, modular component replacement, targeted parameter fine-tuning, and scenario-based function adaptation. Enterprises do not need to reconstruct the entire aircraft technology system. They can quickly launch a new model based on a mature mother platform that has been verified by the market and actual combat. According to different customer needs, different combat scenarios, and different test standards, they can complete partial transformations and functional upgrades. This is also the core reason why new models can be quickly launched.

Global platform reuse to achieve multi-scenario derivation from one platform

After years of technology accumulation and industrial development, the domestic target drone industry has formed a highly standardized and universal whole-machine platform system. It is a mature basic flight platform that can realize batch reuse of the entire system and entire architecture without the need to repeatedly develop the underlying core system. This reusable core system covers nine core modules of the entire aircraft: standardized airframe structure, universal avionics system, mature flight control software and hardware architecture, standardized power distribution system, universal encrypted data link transmission system, integrated ground station control system, modular steering gear execution system, universal inertial navigation system, and standardized aerodynamic stability system.

Relying on this highly mature and fully verified basic platform, companies can quickly iterate subdivided models with completely different positioning based on different application scenarios such as military training, weapons testing, actual combat confrontation, electronic jamming, launch and recovery environments, and achieve a product layout of "one platform with full coverage". The current mainstream derivative model system in the industry is very complete and can be quickly derived based on the same parent platform: basic training target model, radar infrared decoy type, individual soldier/vehicle-mounted patrol missile type, high-altitude and high-speed penetration type, electronic countermeasures jamming type, low-altitude covert penetration type and other segmented products.

Most of the seemingly brand-new target drone models on the market, but after dismantling their core changes, you will find that the innovations and changes are minimal, and they are essentially fine-tuned upgrades of mature platforms. Common modification operations only include: slightly adjusting the fuselage wingspan size to adapt to high-altitude and long-endurance requirements, optimizing the inlet structure to adapt to high-thrust engines, replacing power systems with different powers to match high-speed flight indicators, changing to differentiated mission loads to adapt to reconnaissance/interference/strike requirements, adjusting fuel tank volume to optimize endurance, fine-tuning flight control parameters to adapt to new aerodynamic and power configurations, and adding corner reflectors to enhance radar reflection effects.

This type of local modification is completely different from the traditional R&D model from scratch. There is no need to carry out lengthy aerodynamic tests, structural strength checks, flight control logic reconstruction, and system joint debugging tests. It only needs to complete local adaptability tests to finalize the prototype. The R&D cycle is compressed from several years to several months, the cost is significantly reduced, and the success rate is nearly 100%.

The aerodynamic layout is highly convergent, eliminating the need to repeatedly explore unknown areas.

In aircraft research and development, the most time-consuming, most core, and easiest to iterate is the aerodynamic layout design and wind tunnel test verification. The research and development of traditional aviation aircraft requires hundreds of wind tunnel tests and thousands of data iterations to optimize the aerodynamic shape and avoid problems such as flutter, stall, and airflow distortion. The aerodynamic optimization process alone takes half a year. After decades of accumulation of experience in target drone R&D, accumulation of massive domestic test data, and verification of actual combat scenarios, the current aerodynamic layout suitable for target drone application scenarios has been completely finalized and highly converged. There are no unknown technical fields. Enterprises do not need to repeat exploration and trial and error, and can directly use mature technical solutions.

For target drones in different speed ranges and different application scenarios, the industry has formed a standardized aerodynamic solution, which has become a common "technical standard answer" for all enterprises, completely avoiding the trial and error cost and time cost of aerodynamic research and development.

As the main model used for daily training of troops and testing of conventional weapons, subsonic target drones have the most mature technical solutions. The mainstream adopts conventional aerodynamic layout, V-shaped tail or double vertical tail design, wing-body fusion structure, and rear propulsion layout. The advantages of this layout are very prominent: extremely stable flight, low control difficulty, simple structure and process, and controllable manufacturing costs. It perfectly meets the needs of conventional targets at medium and low altitudes, medium and low speeds, and long endurance. It has been verified by a large number of aircraft models at home and abroad for decades, and the technology has zero risk.

High subsonic target drones are mainly used to simulate the penetration posture of mainstream fighter aircraft and are suitable for medium and long-range air defense weapon tests. Currently, the industry mostly adopts mid- and upper-wing layouts, with belly air intake or back air intake structures, delta wings, or small aspect ratio wing designs. This layout can perfectly balance flight speed, maneuverability and stealth performance, and can accurately simulate the flight characteristics of mainstream fighter jets and attack aircraft. All aerodynamic parameters, flight characteristics, and control logic have formed a standardized database, and enterprises can directly apply them.

The supersonic high-speed penetration target drone is mainly used to simulate penetration scenarios of high-speed missiles, stealth fighters, and supersonic aircraft, and is suitable for high-end air defense and anti-missile weapon tests. The industry's common mature solutions are slender fuselage design, small swept wing layout, modular inlet and rocket-assisted take-off mode. This aerodynamic structure can effectively reduce flight wind resistance and improve top-speed performance. At the same time, the modular air inlet can be quickly adapted and adjusted according to different speed requirements, taking into account performance and iteration efficiency.

In short, the current aerodynamic design work of target drone companies is no longer "exploring the unknown, R&D and innovation", but calling standard answers based on mature databases and making small fine-tuning and optimization according to needs. The trial and error time, test costs, and R&D risks in the pneumatic link are almost zero, which is the core technical prerequisite for the rapid implementation of new models.

The core of the speed revolution: What is fast is not the design, but the industrial engineering organization system

There is a common misunderstanding among the public: they believe that the current surge in target drone research and development is mainly due to the iteration of tools such as design software upgrades, AI-assisted modeling, and digital simulation. It is undeniable that digital tools have indeed improved the efficiency of design drawing and simulation modeling, but this is just the icing on the cake. The core that truly enables the target drone R&D efficiency to achieve an order-of-magnitude breakthrough is the country’s complete, mature, highly market-oriented, and modular industrialized engineering organization system.

The core bottleneck of traditional military R&D has never been drawing and design capabilities, but imperfect supply chain support, lack of engineering experience, high difficulty in system integration, long test verification cycles, and difficult process implementation. Nowadays, the domestic target drone industry has completely broken through the barriers of the entire industry chain, forming a complete closed loop from parts processing, system matching, complete machine integration, test flights, and mass production, and the efficiency of engineering organizations has been improved by leaps and bounds.

The whole industry chain is modular and mature, completely solving the "stuck neck" problem

Looking back ten years ago, the biggest pain point in domestic target drone research and development was not the lack of design capabilities, but the lack of core supporting resources. A large number of key components, avionics modules, and power systems did not have mature domestic products and could not be purchased directly. Enterprises must independently develop and trial-produce them from scratch. At that time, the research and development of a target drone required the company to take into account the entire chain of work including structural design, parts processing, avionics development, flight control programming, power adaptation, and data link research and development. The research and development chain was extremely long, difficult, and cycle-long. The lack of support in any link would cause the entire project to stagnate.

At present, the domestic target drone industry chain has become fully mature, highly segmented, and completely modular, forming a complete industrial ecosystem covering structure, avionics, data link, power, launch recovery, and test support. All core components have mature suppliers that are standardized and mass-produced. Enterprises do not need to independently develop the underlying modules. They only need to select, purchase, and adapt and integrate according to model requirements.

In the field of structural parts, China has formed a large-scale carbon fiber composite material processing industry, high-precision CNC metal processing industry, aviation mold customization industry, composite hot press molding industry, and rapid 3D printing and proofing industry. Whether it is fuselage skins, wing structures, tail components, or various metal connectors and special-shaped structural parts, they can be quickly customized and mass-produced. The prototyping cycle has been shortened from several months to a few days, which can perfectly meet the needs of rapid iteration and rapid trial production of target drones.

In the field of avionics systems, all core modules have achieved standardized mass production. Core components such as high-precision flight control systems, miniature inertial measurement units (IMUs), military-grade inertial navigation modules, aviation pitot tubes, high-precision servos, intelligent power distribution modules, and electronic speed regulators are all mature products on the shelf. They have stable performance parameters, strong adaptability, and high reliability. Enterprises can directly select and purchase without the need to independently develop underlying hardware and drivers.

In the field of data links, domestically produced encrypted data links, long-distance communication modules, and anti-interference transmission systems have formed standardized solutions that can be adapted to target drone models with different distances, different scenarios, and different anti-interference requirements. They support fixed-point transmission, network collaboration, and multi-machine linkage. They fully meet military standards and do not require independent development and adaptation by enterprises.

In the field of power systems, the domestic small aviation power industry is fully mature. Various power devices such as small turbojet engines, high-efficiency electric propulsion systems, and solid rocket boosters have formed a complete product matrix, covering the needs of all scenarios such as low speed, subsonic speed, and supersonic speed. Enterprises can directly select and match based on model indicators.

In the field of launch and recovery, various mature solutions such as pneumatic ejection, rocket-assisted take-off, parachute recovery, air bag buffer recovery, and fixed-point emergency landing are fully popular. Modular launch and recovery equipment can quickly adapt to target drones of different tonnages and sizes without the need to design separate supporting systems.

Based on this mature modular supply chain system, the current core work of target drone companies has been completely transformed, from the traditional "full-chain independent research and development" to simplified to demand disassembly, module selection, system integration, adaptation and debugging, and complete machine test flight. The engineering difficulty, time cost, and trial-and-error risk of system integration are far lower than those of original research and development from scratch. This is the industrial foundation for the rapid implementation of models.

Core engineering experience is spread throughout the region, completely avoiding the cost of R&D trial and error.

If a mature supply chain is the hardware foundation for rapid research and development, then the global flow and diffusion of industry experience is the core soft power of rapid iteration. There is a core consensus in the field of aviation aircraft research and development: the most time-consuming, cost- and energy-consuming part of engineering research and development is not drawing design, modeling and simulation, but trial and error, troubleshooting, and problem solving. The birth of a mature aircraft requires countless flight tests to solve various problems such as bombing, aerodynamic flutter, flight stall, air intake distortion, engine surge, steering gear failure, parachute failure to open, electromagnetic interference, avionics failure, etc. These trial and error processes are the most time-consuming and expensive links.

Under the traditional closed military industry system, such core engineering experience, fault solutions, and test flight return to zero ideas are highly closed and are only in the hands of a few leading scientific research institutes and military industry companies. They cannot be shared by the industry. New entrant teams must trial and error and accumulate from scratch, resulting in a long R&D cycle. However, in the past five years, the marketization of the domestic UAV, target drone, and cruise missile industries has increased significantly, barriers to talent flow have been completely broken, and the industry's core technical experience, engineering experience, and test flight experience have been spread throughout the region.

A large number of chief engineers, senior flight control engineers, structural strength engineers, aerodynamic design engineers, field test flight experts, launch support teams, and fault zeroing experts from traditional military industrial institutes have stepped out of the system and settled in private target drone companies or started their own businesses, becoming the core backbone of emerging teams in the industry. This group of core personnel has been deeply involved in the research and development of aviation aircraft all year round. They have participated in the development, testing, mass production and field support of standard target drones, military drones, and cruise missiles. They have experienced complete project iterations and fault reset processes, and have accumulated a large amount of practical engineering experience.

This has formed a unique phenomenon in the industry: a large number of start-ups that appear to have been established for a short period of time and have shallow experience, but the core team is a senior military industry team that has been deeply involved in the industry for more than ten years. The company is a "new company", but its capabilities, experience, technology, and resources are all "mature capabilities." This type of team accurately grasps all the pain points and difficulties in the development of target drones, and clearly knows the high-frequency failure points in different structures, different systems, and different working conditions: which fuselage structures are prone to fatigue fractures, which aerodynamic layouts are prone to flutter stalls, which air intake structures are prone to airflow distortion, which engine operating conditions are prone to surge shutdowns, which recovery systems have a high failure rate, which avionics layouts are prone to electromagnetic interference, and in which environments equipment stability will be significantly reduced.

Relying on massive pre-engineering experience, this type of team can avoid more than 90% of conventional faults and design defects from the source during the model development process, without having to repeatedly step into pitfalls and trial and error. Traditional teams need to go through dozens of test flight iterations to solve problems. Nowadays, mature teams can avoid them in advance during the design stage and directly skip the long trial and error cycle, so that the efficiency of R&D iterations can be improved exponentially. This is the core invisible barrier for the rapid implementation of new models.

Mainstream R&D model: mother platform solidification + modular rapid derivation

By sorting out the current product layout and R&D logic of head target drone companies, a unified core model can be clearly summarized: solidify a mature universal mother platform and make multi-dimensional, lightweight and rapid modifications based on market demand. All companies will concentrate their core resources to polish 1 to 2 universal basic flight platforms with mature technology, balanced performance, wide adaptability, and high reliability, and complete full-state test flights, fault zeroing, process solidification, and batch verification. All subsequent new model launches will be based on this parent platform for partial iterations, without the need to reconstruct the entire aircraft system.

The core advantage of this R&D model lies in its extremely high technology reuse rate and extremely low iteration cost. The entire aircraft structure, flight control system, avionics system, power infrastructure, data link system, and ground control system of the mature parent platform are completely universal. More than 80% of the systems, structures, and software in the modification research and development do not require any adjustments. Only 20% of the differentiated modules need to be adjusted according to segmented needs to quickly form a new model. This model completely subverts the traditional asset-heavy, long-cycle R&D model of "one model, one research, one model, one iteration", allowing companies to have the ability to iterate multiple new models a year.

Based on this efficient modification system, the company launches multiple target drone models a year. It does not complete multiple full-process research and development from scratch. In essence, it completes multiple iterations of lightweight, low-cost, and short-cycle engineering derivation. All variants share the same mature technology base, supply chain system, production process, and flight test support system. The research and development risks are extremely low, the implementation speed is extremely fast, and the iteration costs are controllable. This is also the core password for the batch emergence of new models in the current industry.

New forces in the industry: Most emerging companies are “starting businesses with technology, plans, and experience.”

The outside world is generally confused: Why are a large number of start-ups that have been established for a very short time able to quickly break through technical barriers, quickly launch mature target drone products, and even catch up with some established military companies? The core answer is: the vast majority of emerging companies in the current track are not startups with zero foundation, but cross-border startups by mature military industry teams with complete technical solutions, engineering experience, project results, and supply chain resources, fundamentally skipping the process of technology accumulation, team building, supply chain polishing, and experience accumulation in the startup period.

Mature project teams are split and spilled over, and technical achievements are seamlessly migrated.

In the past five years, major domestic military-industrial institutes, leading aviation companies, and drone research units have seen an obvious trend of splitting up core teams and spilling over technological achievements. The biggest advantage of this type of team is its own mature technology accumulation and project results. Many teams have completed the design, prototype trial production, test flight verification, and fault reset of multiple target drone platforms during their tenure in the original institutional unit. Some technical solutions have even completed final testing and reached field installation standards. However, they are limited by the project approval process, project quotas, production capacity restrictions, and product planning within the system, and have not been able to achieve market implementation.

After the team started their own business, they did not need to carry out program demonstration, aerodynamic design, structural iteration, algorithm writing, and experimental verification. They only needed to optimize the original mature program for marketization and streamline costs, and then they could quickly complete prototype trial production, complete aircraft test flight, and product finalization. This is also the core reason why many new companies can achieve their first flight within a few months of being established, exhibit at exhibitions within half a year, and accept orders within a year. Their core technologies, products, and experience are all mature results accumulated over a long period of time, not the result of short-term research and development.

Full-dimensional industrial experience flows at a high speed, and the overall capabilities of the industry are homogenized. As the market-oriented reform of the UAV and target drone industries continues to deepen, industry barriers have been completely broken down, forming a new industrial pattern of free flow of talents, rapid diffusion of technology, global sharing of the supply chain, universal popularization of processes, and interoperability and reuse of experience.

At the technical level, mature flight control algorithms, aerodynamic design solutions, avionics integration logic, electromagnetic compatibility design, and data link adaptation technologies are no longer exclusive barriers for a few companies. Through talent flow, project cooperation, technology outsourcing, etc., they have been popularized throughout the industry; at the supply chain level, leading companies The core suppliers, supporting manufacturers, processing technology, and quality inspection standards will gradually be opened to the entire industry. Small and medium-sized start-ups can also purchase military-grade standardized parts; at the technological level, the mature processes and processes of composite material processing, complete machine assembly, precision debugging, and test flight assurance will be universal in the industry.

This global resource flow and experience transfer has rapidly homogenized the industry's overall technical level, R&D capabilities, and engineering experience, completely narrowing the technology gap between leading established companies and emerging start-ups. At present, most companies in the industry share the same supply chain system, the same core power, a common flight control system, standardized data link equipment, and unified production processes. The industry's overall R&D limit has been greatly increased, and the iteration speed of new models has simultaneously ushered in explosive growth.