mijobooks Chapter 96 Flight Control Platform
Chapter 96 Flight Control Platform
On the evening of February 8, 2020.
Su Chen sat in his office for a long time.
This morning, I signed the first batch of procurement contracts for Microsensors with Zhao Jiancheng and Lin Shiming. At noon, I took on personal stock options and an external technical consultant position. This afternoon, I held a meeting regarding the F5 timeline. It's 10 PM now.
He opened the strategy document on his computer.
He began writing this document on the very first day after his rebirth at the end of 2016. It begins with only one line: "Make flight control a core asset of the company."
Three and a half years later, this document has eighty-seven pages. The first fifty pages are a record of the strategic implementation over the past three and a half years. The last thirty-seven pages are the strategic plan for the next three years.
He turned to page sixty-three.
The title of this page is: "From Flight Control Platform to Industry Infrastructure: Hongyuan's Second Three Years".
The content has only three subheadings: Consumer-grade F4 to F5 are progressing; The plant protection SDK alliance continues to expand; The industrial-grade Southern Power Grid contract has been finalized.
This page was written in May 2019. Today he added a paragraph at the bottom of this page.
"Starting from Q1 2020, Hongyuan needs to move towards its fourth strategic level: opening up its flight control platform. This involves modularizing, interface-izing, and standardizing the core flight control modules of the F4, and making them available for external procurement. Target customers: small and medium-sized UAV companies and special UAV companies (logistics UAVs, emergency UAVs, educational UAVs, etc.) that are unable to develop their own flight control systems."
He paused writing.
This idea had been swirling in his mind since the end of last year, but it hadn't materialized yet. The reason was that his three strategic lines (consumer-grade/plant-grade/industrial-grade) hadn't fully stabilized. The timing for launching a fourth line was wrong.
But today—the Southern Power Grid contract is finalized, MicroSense becomes a backup supplier, the SDK alliance exceeds sixty members, Haotai hesitates, and the non-compete agreements of Wu Zheng and Xu Lang are about to expire.
The time has come.
He typed a new document in his notebook. Document name: Hongyuan Flight Control Open Platform (Working Name: Flying Bird Project).
Core concept: Package the Hongyuan F4-level flight control core module—including IMU, barometer, magnetometer, processor chip, basic obstacle avoidance and RTK support—into a standardized hardware module and purchase it from external suppliers.
The module measures 5x5 cm. The interface is standardized. External companies can purchase it and simply provide the airframe, motors, battery, casing, and application layer for specific scenarios; once plugged in, it becomes a core product for any drone company.
Pricing: There are three tiers, from the basic version to the high-end version. The basic version retails for 499 yuan (including development documentation and basic technical support). The high-end version is 999 yuan (supports RTK, complete obstacle avoidance, and automatic flight path). The mid-range version is 699 yuan.
This pricing strategy is extremely disruptive.
The current retail price of a single F4 unit in the industry is 3,500 yuan. The material cost related to the flight control system is about 1,000 yuan. The selling price of the high-end flight control module at 999 yuan means that Hongyuan barely makes any profit—the net profit per module is about 200 yuan.
But for external buyers, getting an F4-level flight control module for 999 yuan is an extremely good deal. Developing a flight control system of the same level in-house would require at least 20 million yuan in R&D investment and three years.
Any company that wants to enter the drone industry but doesn't want to develop its own flight control system—it can be bought for 999 yuan—won't refuse.
Su Chen further explained in the document: This 999 yuan does not include SDK development services. SDK development services are charged at 1500 yuan per hour, or can be purchased as a package with a fixed annual license fee. The real profit margin is here.
Linear extrapolation suggests that if 300 small and medium-sized drone companies in the industry, unable to develop their own flight control systems, adopt this solution, and each company purchases 1,000 to 5,000 modules annually, averaging 2,000 modules at a mid-range price, the output per company would be approximately 1.4 million. 300 companies would generate approximately 450 million. Adding the bundled purchase of SDK development services, the annual revenue and profit could reach 5 trillion.
This is not in the revenue range of Hongyuan's first and third strategic lines. But its significance goes beyond the revenue itself.
Its significance is that Hongyuan's flight controllers are no longer just Hongyuan's own products. They have become the industry's infrastructure. Every single one of the tens of thousands of drones using Hongyuan modules flying in the industry generates data that flows back to Hongyuan's iterative flight controller system.
Data. Advantages. Infrastructure status.
Su Chen continued writing.
The platform is officially named Hongyuan Flight Control Open Platform (abbreviated as Hongyuan Flight Platform). It is expected to be officially released in the second quarter of 2020. The platform's external licensing hierarchy follows the four-level SDK licensing standard established last October, but adjustments have been made for the hardware modules.
He wrote a line at the end of the document:
"This isn't a money-making product. It's a structural moat."
He saved the document and sent it to Zhou Ming, Wu Zheng, Xu Lang, Fang Xu, and Meng Xiaoying, adding a note: "Meeting to discuss this at 10:00 AM tomorrow."
The meeting on the second day lasted for three hours.
Wu Zheng was the first to speak. His nineteen years of experience at Tianying gave him a deep understanding of platform strategies.
"Mr. Su, platformization is the right approach. But we need to be sure of one thing—that Hongyuan's own product lines (F4, F5, and industrial-grade) are at least one iteration ahead of platform customers in core technologies. Otherwise, platform customers' products will backfire and damage our own market."
"Yes. The open platform supports the F4 generation flight controller. Hongyuan's own F5 uses the next generation. Platform customers will always be the generation after us."
"The documentation needs to be included. The module protocol standard for the open platform will be updated every year along with the iteration of Hongyuan's own flight controllers, but platform customers have a three-month maturity period."
He was the first to propose this mechanism—to institutionalize the time difference between platform customers and Hongyuan's own products.
Xu Lang added a sentence.
"From a capital perspective, the open platform is not just a source of revenue. It is Hongyuan's biggest moat. From now on, any drone company that does not have its own HandLink flight control system will be running on Hongyuan's flight control system. The competitive distance between them and Hongyuan has changed from physical to mathematical discontinuity."
These words made Zhou Ming look up.
"Therefore, the open platform will also become a threshold for Haotai."
"That's right. If Haotai's Tianying doesn't develop its own flight control system, it will either have to buy a platform from Hongyuan—becoming our downstream customer; or it will continue to use the PX4 open-source solution—forever lagging behind Hongyuan by one generation. Neither of these options is what it wants."
Meng Xiaoying added a sentence.
"There's a risk with this pricing strategy—the price of 999 compared to the F4's 3500 price tag might trigger a re-evaluation of the F4's price by consumers. This could negatively impact F4 sales."
Su Chen nodded.
「我想过。F4到Q3会进入换代期。F5提前到Q1末开始小规模测试、Q3宣传、Q4正式上市。F5的定价是五千零九十九——比F4高十几产的线。F5上市以后，F4马上降价到二千七百九十九，顺势消化一批入门级客户。至于平台客户做出来的产品——它们在工业场景和特种场景。和F4/F5的消费级客户不在同一片市场。」
Meng Xiaoying was silent for ten seconds. Then he nodded.
Fang Xu offered a legal reminder.
"Mr. Su, the sale of modules from the open platform to external parties may raise issues of liability for air accidents. These need to be clearly defined in the sales contract."
"Write it in. Draft a sample statement for the 'boundaries of responsibility' section over the next two weeks."
The three-hour meeting ended at 1:30 PM. Project Flying Bird was officially approved for launch that afternoon.
Wu Zheng is responsible for the productization of the technology modules. Zhou Ming is responsible for the platform's production and supply chain. Meng Xiaoying is responsible for customer marketing. Fang Xu is responsible for contracts and legal matters. Xu Lang is responsible for strategic interfaces and capital coordination.