In the morning, a cargo drone took off from Shibei Hi-tech Park at Wenshui Road. It soared through the low-altitude airspace between buildings, and under the regulation of ID-Space system, it took just about 6 minutes to arrive at Shibei One Center on Jiangchang Road, which is 2 kilometers away. From creating the flight plan, completing plan approval, to loading and takeoff, real-time flight situation monitoring, and finally precise landing and unloading, the entire process took only 13 minutes.

Recently, Shanghai announced the list of the second batch of 49 innovative enterprise headquarters, with two technology enterprises from Jing'an District in the list. Among them, CASCO was honorably selected as a representative enterprise in the strategic emerging field. As a backbone supplier and innovation benchmark enterprise in the rail transit industry, CASCO is not only a "National Enterprise Technology Center", a "Manufacturing Single Champion Enterprise", but also one of the first batch of "Service-Oriented Manufacturing Demonstration Enterprises" and "Enterprises with Excellent Information System Construction and Service Capability" in China.

In November 2024, with the successful maiden flight of Jing'an District's first low-altitude logistics route in Shanghai, the ID-Space platform jointly built by CASCO and Shibei High-tech Park officially commenced trial operation.

Recently, the reporter learned from CASCO that with the optimization and upgrade of the communication network and the continuous enrichment of low-altitude logistics application scenarios during the trial operation, the service platform has smoothly entered normalized operation.  

Currently, CASCO is working with Shibei High-tech Park in Jing'an District to jointly build the Shanghai Shibei Low-Altitude Flight Demonstration Zone. Based on the ID-Space platform, it provides services such as low-altitude logistics and low-altitude inspection, helping to upgrade urban governance model and exploring an innovative path for the development of the megacity's low-altitude economy.

From "Human Errand" to "Delivery in Minutes": Low-Altitude Economy Activates Enterprise Efficiency

Currently, with emerging new modes of "Low-Altitude Economy+", the low-altitude economy has embarked on diverse commercialization attempts in transportation, logistics, tourism, agriculture, and other fields. These new modes and attempts all have practical demands.

Taking CASCO's application scenarios as an example, CASCO has three scattered office locations within the Shibei High-tech Zone, with a large amount of documents, invoices, and testing materials needing to be delivered daily. Previously, the delivery mainly relied on traditional manual modes such as express delivery, flash delivery, and employee carrying, which were not only time-consuming and labor-intensive but also increased operating costs. "Now, with the introduction of low-altitude logistics, the delivery of key materials has reduced from hours to minutes." said Zhang Lipeng, General Manager of CASCO's Industrial Innovation Incubation Center.

In addition to CASCO, the Shibei low-altitude logistics route also serve cooperative enterprises in the park, property companies, and express delivery companies. In the past, the delivery of express delivery companies and contracted enterprises was limited to only two to three centralized deliveries per day, often causing delays in the delivery of some documents and materials. After the introduction of low-altitude logistics, companies and property companies can now place orders "on demand" at any time, significantly improving efficiency.

The reporter learned that with the continuous optimization of the low-altitude communication network and the coordination and optimization of airspace users in the future, more application scenarios such as high-efficiency material delivery, air flash delivery, and warehouse-to-store transfer can be realized.

From Regional Demonstration to Provincial and Municipal Promotion: Solving the Problem of Low-Altitude Management and Control is the Key

"In fact, many enterprises have the demand for low-altitude flights, but the thresholds for low-altitude operation are relatively high", Zhang Lipeng told the reporter. In low-altitude airspace without traffic lights and lane lines, how can drones be ensured to fly safely between dense buildings? The answer is in the ID-Space platform that CASCO jointly built with Shibei High-tech Park.

The reporter learned that the design of ID-Space platform integrates the civil unmanned aerial vehicle integrated management platform, general aviation flight service guarantee system, civil aviation air traffic management automation system, etc. Its functions cover the full-cycle management of low-altitude flights, including access management, airspace approval, plan approval, flight monitoring, flight reporting, etc., which comprehensively ensures the safe and efficient operation of the low-altitude logistics route.

Unlike the current common low-altitude logistics platforms, the ID-Space platform now operating in Shibei High-tech Park can focus more macroscopically on the overall dynamics of all aircraft within the region, including manned and unmanned aircraft, cooperative and non-cooperative target aircraft, etc. Based on the regional-level management and control platform, it explores and upgrades toward provincial and municipal low-altitude intelligent management and control platforms.

In addition, the ID-Space platform has also enabled CASCO's key technologies in the intelligent operation control system for rail transit to "fly into the sky", delineating "air tracks" for drones and incorporating the concepts of auto protection and automatic train control in rail transit into the ID-Space platform. This has resulted in early-stage technical reserves and validation tests for future high-density and automated flight management in low-altitude airspace. The reporter learned that this is also the first time such functional scenarios have been proposed and applied in domestic low-altitude management and control platforms, providing technical support for the large-scale development of the future low-altitude economy.

From Logistics to Governance: The Low-Altitude Economy Ecosystem Takes Shape

This "air express" shuttle between high buildings not only has significant social benefits in reducing logistics and distribution costs and carbon emissions, but also is a microcosm of the extension of the low-altitude economy from a single scenario to comprehensive governance.

"We are actively cooperating with property companies to carry out building inspections and river inspections, while expanding and exploring low-altitude application scenarios in multiple fields," Zhang Lipeng revealed. In the future, the platform will further extend this service to government affairs, policing, firefighting, and other fields, helping to upgrade urban governance models.

For Shibei High-tech Park, the new low-altitude economy development platform jointly built with CASCO is not only a carrier for undertaking national strategies, but also a lever for optimizing the business environment.

"We are not only serving enterprises but also upgrading our own park management. For example, the maintenance of glass curtain walls previously relied on manual labor, but now low-altitude inspections can integrate video streams and data streams, becoming a new tool for fine management," added the relevant responsible person from Shibei High-tech Park.

The reporter learned that the Shibei Low-Altitude Demonstration Zone is solving problems such as airspace user coordination mechanisms, aircraft flight safety, and noise control, actively exploring a drone logistics system that can be further extended and applied at the district and municipal levels, comprehensively covering aircraft needs analysis, logistics application scenario design, route network layout planning, urban development resource allocation, etc., to effectively promote the development of the low-altitude economy.

"Shibei High-tech Park is an important focus of Jing'an's future development. We are here working with Shibei High-tech to create a favorable environment and look forward to more enterprises joining the low-altitude ecosystem in the future. We also hope to promote this concept nationwide and contribute to the development of China's low-altitude economy," said Zhang Lipeng.

Reporter: Jiang Wenjie

Reposted from the official WeChat account of Shanghai Jing'an