The global drone supply chain
There are roughly four types of drones: helicopters, fixed-wing, multi-rotor, and airships. By different usage areas, drones can be divided into military, civilian, and consumer-grade categories.
One type is the drone manufacturer like DJI; the other type is the upstream manufacturer that provides hardware and software for drones, including chips, flight control systems, batteries, sensors, GPS, gyroscopes, power systems, and data systems, etc.
In terms of hardware, the chip is the core component, which directly determines the drone's control performance, communication ability, and image processing ability.
Drone main control chip manufacturers include Qualcomm, Intel, ST, TI, Samsung, Atmel, Nuvoton, XMOS, and NVIDIA, etc.
Consumer-grade hardware manufacturers include DJI, Parrot, Yuneec, ASC Tec, and 3DR, etc.
Technology providers include Skydio (provider of drone navigation systems), Aerotenan, Panoptes EBumper, Percepto, BetterView, AMIMON, Vertical AI, and Dedrone, etc.
Core component suppliers include InvenSense (acquired by Japanese TDK, developing and selling microelectromechanical systems gyroscopes for motion tracking devices), MicroPilot (producing autopilot systems for drone systems), PolarPro (specializing in producing filters and other accessories for sports cameras), and uAvionix, etc.
Accessory suppliers include ParaZero and Fuerte Cases, etc.
Main Control Chip Manufacturer
① Qualcomm
The main controller: Snapdragon chip. It has wireless communication, sensor integration, and spatial positioning functions. It uses the "RealSense" technology to build a 3D map and perceive the surrounding environment. It can fly like a bat and actively avoid obstacles.
The most fundamental advantage of Snapdragon Flight is to lower the cost and price of drone manufacturing. Digging deeper into the reasons, the first is that Qualcomm's drone chip has the same processor as smartphones, and may also include some other common components, which can achieve scaled production and bring cost optimization effects; the second is that the chip is highly integrated, saving the cost of multiple high-priced modules combined, according to reports, the cost of each module is 30%-40% of the drone cost.
② Intel (Intel)
Main controller: Intel Atom processor. It is equipped with up to 6 Intel "RealSense" 3D cameras, and uses a PCI-express custom card with a quad-core Intel Atom processor to process the real-time information of the distance and sensors, as well as how to avoid nearby obstacles.
As the traditional PC sales continued to decline, Intel is shifting its chip business to the booming drone battlefield. However, compared with selling end products, Intel is more keen on providing solutions for drones, especially in the field of drone vision. Intel's biggest advantage lies in its RealSense technology, which uses infrared lasers, which avoids the massive amount of computation required for computer vision object recognition compared to Qualcomm's dual-camera vision technology, and effectively improves accuracy.
③ST (STMicroelectronics)
Controller: STM32 series. ST's full range of MEMS gyroscopes, accelerometers, sensors, and power management chips.
ST's (STMicroelectronics' STM32L0 series microprocessors are based on ARM's Cortex - M0+ architecture, focusing on ultra-low power consumption, and are mainly used in wearable, medical, and industrial sensor applications. Previously, a large number of STM32 F0 and F4 series products were used in drones.
④ SamSung (Samsung)
Controller: Samsung Artik chip. The Artik 10 features a 1.3GHz eight-core processor, 2GB of memory, and 16GB of flash storage. Includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, ZigBee, and Thread.
Samsung launched low-power chip Artik in May 2015, with three specifications, of which Artik1 is only 12mm*12mm in size and costs less than $10, it is reported that the specifications differ in processing speed, storage capacity, and wireless communication capability. This chip is aimed at drones and smart home devices, etc. Internet devices. The industry generally believes that Artik will become Samsung's trump card in countering Qualcomm and Intel, but strictly speaking, Samsung is still a latecomer.
⑤NVIDIA (NVIDIA)
Controller: NVIDIA Jetson TX1 chip. The TX1 features a 1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core processor, 4GB of memory, and 32GB of eMMC flash storage. Includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and HDMI.
NVIDIA launched the Jetson TX1 in 2015, which is based on the NVIDIA Maxwell architecture and features a 1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core processor, 4GB of memory, and 32GB of eMMC In contrast to Intel's attempt to enter the drone market using its processors to counter the sluggish sales of PCs, Nvidia has no urgent reason to enter the drone market, as its core GPU graphics processor business has seen a 7% annual growth rate and accounted for 82% of its 2016 first-half revenue.
According to reports, in 2015, Nvidia successively provided chips to Parrot and its competitor DJI for the drone market. For the drone market, Nvidia developed the Jetson TX1 chip solution, which can handle various image and graphic recognition and advanced artificial intelligence tasks. With the use of this chip, drones can stay in the air for longer periods of time.
