The 2025 Shanghai International Low-Altitude Economy Expo recently concluded successfully at the National Exhibition and Convention Center. Nearly 300 global exhibitors showcased cutting-edge achievements in the low-altitude economy sector, exploring pathways for building the "City in the Sky". As a leader in rail transit intelligent control, CASCO presented its core technical solutions - the ID-Space 2.0 System and UAV AI Inspection System - for the first time, demonstrating its technological innovation path extending from rail transit to low-altitude economy.
Low-Altitude Airspace Management: Building Safety Order and Empowering 3D Transportation
According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), China's low-altitude economy is projected to reach CNY 1.5 trillion by the end of 2025 and CNY 3.5 trillion by 2035. Facing this trillion-yuan market, safe and efficient airspace management has become crucial for the industry’s scaled development.
Rail transit and low-altitude flight share technical commonalities in operation control, safety management, and resource dispatching. Leveraging nearly 40 years of rail transit intelligent control expertise, CASCO has transplanted proven capabilities in large-scale high-density traffic flow organization, dynamic path planning, and real-time resource allocation to low-altitude scenarios, and developed the ID-Space 2.0 System. Through digital airspace modeling, dynamic flow control, and safety envelope technologies, the system establishes a full-process control system covering "planning-dispatching-monitoring-maintenance". With moving block for dynamic safety distance protection, it creates safety envelopes around aircrafts, and enables layered speed management to ensure orderly operation at different altitudes, laying a solid technical foundation for the future vision of "tens of thousands of take-offs and landings".
This system was first validated in the integrated demonstration flight in Nanjing Pukou in August 2024. With successive implementation of pilot scenarios, it has now been deployed at Shanghai Shibei Hi-Tech Park and Nan'an, Fujian, establishing replicable regional intelligent control platform benchmarks and laying groundwork for provincial and municipal platform development.
Looking ahead, CASCO will further deploy take-off/landing field control systems to create integrated solutions covering the full flight cycle of "take-off-cruise-landing", connecting airspace control nodes with ground freight/passenger hubs to facilitate intelligent air-ground coordinated transportation systems.
UAV AI Inspection: Driving Intelligent Maintenance and Enhancing Governance Efficiency
CASCO's UAV AI Inspection System integrates digital twin, artificial intelligence, and next-gen ICT technologies. Through full-time, full-domain high-precision automated inspection, intelligent data analysis, and digital management, it automatically identifies equipment faults and environmental anomalies with over 90% accuracy, significantly improving inspection efficiency and quality while reducing labor costs and safety risks.
Focusing on "low-altitude + rail" applications, the system has been successfully applied in Huaxian Railway Dedicated Line and Wuxi Metro Protection Zone, enabling rail transit maintenance model upgrade from "failure repair" to "condition-based maintenance" with real-time fault identification and emergency response linkage. CASCO has rapidly expanded applications to river inspection, flood control, project testing, glass curtain wall maintenance, and other scenarios.
At Shanghai Jing'an Shibei Low-Altitude Demonstration Site, CASCO conducts river inspections along Zoumatang and Pengpu Rivers using UAVs integrated with image recognition and intelligent analysis to promptly detect abnormalities and accelerate response. In high-risk glass curtain wall inspections, UAV AI systems efficiently replace manual work through video-data fusion analysis, identifying hazards like glass breakage, structural adhesive cracking, and component corrosion, which substantially boosts maintenance efficiency.
Enterprise Strategic Upgrade: Intelligent Control Technology Empowers Low-Altitude Economy
From covering over 110 CBTC metro lines and 180 high-speed railways nationwide to innovative breakthroughs in low-altitude economy, CASCO is accelerating business expansion and capability upgrades through profound technical accumulation and forward-looking vision.
At the expo, CASCO showcased its technological innovation strength through these two core products and stood out among hundreds of enterprises to win the "Airspace Application Pioneer Award" (scenario category), gaining industry recognition for its low-altitude technology achievements.
During the expo, CASCO signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Shanghai Low-Altitude Economy Industry Development Co., Ltd. Both parties will leverage respective strengths to collaborate on low-altitude research institute co-construction, industry standard formulation, key technology verification, and scenario co-development. Meanwhile, as an initiating member, CASCO promoted and witnessed the establishment of the "East China (Yangtze River Delta) Low-Altitude Economy Industry Alliance", joining over 150 government, enterprise, university, and research institute members to build an open, cooperative, and shared industrial ecosystem.
CASCO (first from right) signs strategic cooperation agreement with Shanghai Low-Altitude Economy Industry Development Co., Ltd. (third from right)
CASCO as the council member of the "East China (Yangtze River Delta) Low-Altitude Economy Industry Alliance"
A CASCO representative stated that the company will continue to deepen R&D in intelligent control and inspection technologies, and expand into public service scenarios like government affairs, policing, and firefighting. It will collaborate with industry chain partners, to advance standardized and intelligent development of low-altitude economy, contributing to the construction of a safe, efficient, and flexible integrated 3D transportation network.
