Why is autonomous flight the key focus in the second half of the low-altitude economy?

In 2026, the low-altitude manned aviation sector will reach a historic “watershed.” Supportive government policies will be issued in dense succession, and core targets will accelerate their financing. If the keywords for the first half of the low-altitude economy are “electrification” and “vertical takeoff and landing,” with major manufacturers working to free aircraft from runway constraints and achieve “the ability to fly” at the physical level, then the decisive game of the second half will depend entirely on “intelligentization”—enabling truly safe flight.

As companies such as EHang and Peak Flight successively break through airworthiness thresholds, the industry’s focus has rapidly shifted from purely hardware manufacturing to how to build an air-traffic network with high density and high frequency. In this leap from “manufacturing” to “intelligent manufacturing,” autonomous flight technology has become a core factor determining whether the low-altitude economy can truly move from pilot programs to scaled operations.

Global capital races in: the autonomous flight track enters the “billion-dollar club” era

From 2025 to 2026, overseas autonomous flight will see an unprecedented wave of capital. The financing scales of leading companies keep setting new records, fully demonstrating global capital markets’ high recognition of the strategic value of autonomous flight technology:

Merlin Labs — In March 2026, it entered Nasdaq via a SPAC merger (ticker MRLN), raising more than $200 million. The company valuation is about $1 billion. Getting such a valuation when 2025 revenue was only $8.5 million reflects the market’s expectation of a significant premium for autonomous flight technology. Merlin has already secured a $105 million C-130J autonomous flight contract from the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSCOM), and has cumulatively completed hundreds of hours of autonomous flight testing.

Skyryse — Completed a $208B Series C financing round in February 2026, reaching a valuation of $1.15 billion and officially joining the unicorn ranks. Its SkyOS flight operating system has received FAA final design approval for the flight control computer. Total funding raised exceeds $605 million, with investors including Fidelity, the Qatar sovereign fund, and other top-tier institutions.

Wisk Aero (Boeing-owned) — Received a strategic investment of $450 million from Boeing. In December 2025, it completed the first flight of its sixth-generation autonomous electric air taxi, becoming the first autonomous manned aircraft project in the U.S. to enter the FAA certification process. The goal is to achieve commercial operations by 2030 in Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami.

Reliable Robotics — Cumulatively raised $134 million. In 2025, it won a $17.4 million contract from the U.S. Air Force, deploying an autonomous retrofit for Cessna 208B cargo aircraft. Investors include Coatue, RTX Ventures, and other top technology and defense funds.

Honeywell — As the global leader in avionics flight control (with $15 billion in annual aerospace and aviation revenue), in 2025 it announced an expansion of cooperation with NXP Semiconductors to develop AI-driven autonomous flight avionics systems, and plans to spin off and list its aerospace business independently in the second half of 2026 to further focus on autonomous flight technology. Honeywell Anthem platform has reached cooperation agreements with eVTOL manufacturers such as Vertical Aerospace.

A clear signal has emerged: the global autonomous flight track has entered the “billion-dollar club” era. Valuations for leading companies are often above $1 billion, and single-round financing of $150k to $450 million has become the norm. This not only reflects the increasing maturity of the technology, but also suggests that the industry is about to reach a turning point as it moves from the R&D stage toward large-scale commercialization.

Second half of the low-altitude economy: autonomous flight becomes the core protagonist

The protagonists of the first half of the low-altitude economy are eVTOL complete-aircraft manufacturers. Their core goal is to “make the aircraft able to fly”—using electrification and vertical takeoff and landing technology to break the reliance of traditional aircraft on runways and successfully unlock the imagination space for urban air mobility.

At present, many landmark achievements have emerged in this field. Domestic players are racing to gain momentum: EHang EH216-S has obtained the world’s first type certificate for a manned eVTOL, and Peak Flight V2000 completed the world’s first ton-class eVTOL full conversion flight. But it’s important to note that “being able to fly” is just the starting point; “being able to fly safely and autonomously” is the prerequisite for scaled operations.

Here’s a key data point: According to statistics from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), more than 70% of aviation accidents originate from human factors. Autonomous flight technology replaces human judgment with systems, fundamentally eliminating human error and freeing safety from human physiological and psychological limits.

In simple terms, safety is the technical floor of the low-altitude economy, while autonomous flight is the industry’s growth ceiling. This leads to the protagonist of the second half of the low-altitude economy—autonomous flight technology companies.

Autonomous flight is not just “unmanned flight,” but an intelligent system integrating sensing, decision-making, and control, enabling aircraft to autonomously plan routes and avoid obstacles in complex environments without real-time human control. Only with this capability can truly realize trillion-level scenarios such as high-density scheduling of urban air mobility, large-scale drone logistics and delivery, and unmanned emergency rescue—this is also the key reason autonomous flight has become the core of the second half of the low-altitude economy.

Avionics flight control: the key bottlenecks and high-value ground for autonomous flight

To understand the core logic of autonomous flight, first you need to understand its core support: the avionics flight control system. This is the most value-dense technical link in the low-altitude economy industry chain. The low-altitude electrified aviation industry chain can be divided into five links: component suppliers (T2), system suppliers (T1), complete-aircraft manufacturers (OEM), operators (OC), and end customers and passengers. Among these, avionics flight control system suppliers (T1) hold the key lifeline for autonomous flight of aircraft. Their strategic position is comparable to key technology providers such as Waymo and Huawei in the autonomous driving field.

As the “brain” of the aircraft, the avionics flight control system is responsible for sensing the environment, analyzing the aircraft’s state, making decisions, and controlling flight—directly determining the aircraft’s flight safety and autonomous capability. As the most valuable core component in the eVTOL industry chain, its single-unit value accounts for 15% to 25% of the total aircraft cost, and it is hailed as “the pearl of the eVTOL industry chain.”

More importantly, this system can significantly reduce operating costs. According to McKinsey data, traditional pilot training costs $150k per person; with related technologies it can be reduced to $80,000 to $100k. Fully autonomous flight can even completely eliminate pilot costs, bringing operating costs down by 40% to 60%. This is similar to how autonomous driving reshapes the mobility industry—now, in the low-altitude sector, that logic is gradually reappearing.

Globally speaking, every company that controls core avionics flight control technologies has deep civil aviation genes without exception: Honeywell, with decades of accumulation, dominates the global flight control supply chain; Wisk relies on Boeing’s aviation system; Merlin teams up with GE to deeply work on autonomousization of military transport aircraft; and Skyryse’s team also originates from traditional aviation giants. This pattern reveals the core threshold of the autonomous flight track: civil aviation-grade airworthiness experience cannot be rushed. It is the product of long-term accumulation of time, safety culture, and engineering systems.

Policy sets the tone high, and capital deployment adjusts its direction

The “15th Five-Year Plan” and the 2026 government work report have established the low-altitude economy as a “new pillar industry,” and have explicitly called for improving airspace management, airworthiness approval, and safety assurance levels. The “Guidance on Building a Standards System for the Low-Altitude Economy” issued by ten ministries and commissions aims to have the industry standards system basically built by 2027. Even more significant is that in February 2026, five departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released a programmatic document. For the first time, at the national level, it部署ed utilizing technologies such as 5G-A and integrated sensing-communication to lay a solid “digital foundation” for low-altitude operations, and set a clear target that the coverage rate of the low-altitude public airway network by 2027 should be no less than 90%. This series of policy “combination punches” is working together to push the low-altitude economy from concept acceleration to scaled reality.

Some domestic manufacturers that position themselves at this key bottleneck—flight control systems—have brought civil aviation-grade safety standards into urban low-altitude environments, becoming a key force driving this shift. Recent shifts in funding investment directions also reveal market preference changes—from complete-aircraft to strengthening the core flight control segment: at the end of 2024, the listed company Zhongheng Communications (603602.SH) spent 70 million to acquire狮尾智能, a core avionics flight control system supplier positioned at T1 in the industry chain; in early 2026, focusing on the flight control segment, Qingwei Aviation and Boundary Intelligent Control both completed a new round of financing valued at 300 million to 500 million yuan.

Rise of domestic flight control, 狮尾智能: a scarce target in China’s autonomous flight track

Amid the global rush of the autonomous flight track, one fact that cannot be ignored is: Compared with overseas leading players such as Merlin Labs (valuation $1 billion), Skyryse (valuation $1.15 billion), and Wisk Aero (Boeing injection of $450 million), China’s autonomous flight track has an extremely scarce set of core targets that truly possess civil aviation genes.

In this window, flight control enterprises that can meet three conditions will gain the most certain competitive advantages: first, they must have civil aviation-grade airworthiness development experience (technical depth); second, they must have established deep cooperation with major host OEMs (ecosystem positioning); third, they must have proven commercial deployment capability and self-sustaining “blood production” ability (commercial maturity). Industry insiders say that only a very small number of domestic flight control companies meet all three conditions, and 狮尾智能’s overall performance places it in the first tier.

The scarcity of 狮尾智能 is reflected in four dimensions:

First, an irreproducible civil aviation gene. Founder and CEO 施维 previously led the integrated development of the C919 aircraft flight control system in Honeywell’s aerospace division, and led the team to complete the C919 maiden flight mission. The core team directly inherits the world’s top civil aviation flight control R&D system. Looking at overseas cases, Merlin, Wisk, and Skyryse are all based on deep civil aviation or military aviation backgrounds—狮尾智能 is one of the very few teams in China with a similarly deep civil aviation gene.

Second, a strategic “must-have” for domestic substitution. With international giants such as Honeywell dominating the global flight control supply chain, together with increasingly strict export controls, China’s eVTOL industry faces “bottleneck” risks. As a domestic supplier with complete civil-military aircraft airworthiness flight control experience, 狮尾智能 fills not only a technical gap, but also a strategic shortfall in the national aviation supply chain security.

Third, deep binding to leading ecosystems. 狮尾智能 has already reached deep strategic cooperation with multiple leading domestic complete-aircraft enterprises. Its INSKY flight control system can quickly be adapted to multiple aircraft models including multirotor and vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, as well as traditional general aviation aircraft, and the company is fully working to participate in the entire key airworthiness certification process. The company also cooperated with its parent company Zhongheng Communications (603602.SH) to complete Peak Flight V2000’s first maritime flight, validating the reliability of large eVTOLs in complex marine environments.

Fourth, differentiated business model. 狮尾智能 innovatively adopts a “core spare parts T1 + commercial operations OC” dual-engine driving model: it not only participates as a flight control system supplier in the upstream of the industry chain, but also extends downstream to the operations side. It is actively applying for domestic first-batch large unmanned aircraft OC operational qualifications, enabling a fully closed loop from technology to operations—this is also extremely rare among overseas benchmark enterprises.

From a global benchmarking perspective, the valuation logic of the autonomous flight track is already clear: Merlin Labs supported a $1 billion valuation with $8.5 million in annual revenue (about 118x P/S), and Skyryse obtained a $1.15 billion valuation even though its products were not yet mass-produced. By comparison, 狮尾智能’s fourfold value—civil aviation genes, the urgent need for domestic substitution, binding to leading ecosystems, and the dual-engine driven model—makes its scarcity in China’s trillion-level low-altitude economy market self-evident. As, in 2026, multiple domestic eVTOL aircraft models enter the key phase of airworthiness certification in a concentrated manner, 狮尾智能’s first-mover advantage will enter an accelerated release period.

Conclusion

The three forces of policy support, technology-driven momentum, and scenario enablement are pushing the industry from pilot exploration toward an upgrade in technology and scaled growth. With ongoing iteration of autonomous flight technology, this leap from “manufacturing” to “intelligent manufacturing” will reshape the landscape of air transportation.

At a statement by 施维, CEO of 狮尾智能: “Wisk is backed by Boeing and received $450 million in investment; Merlin entered Nasdaq with a $1 billion valuation; Skyryse became a unicorn with a $1.15 billion valuation; and Honeywell, backed by decades of accumulation, dominates the global flight control supply chain. In the autonomous flight track, every heavyweight player has deep civil aviation genes as its foundation. 狮尾智能’s civil aviation genes also come from the world’s top flight control R&D system. Our goal is not only domestic substitution, but also representing China to participate in and lead global autonomous flight technology innovation. For visionary investors, in the critical track of China’s trillion-level low-altitude economy, the window period for core flight control targets with global benchmarking strength will not last long.”

(Editor: 刘畅 ）

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