Our happy unmanned future
From 0,1 percent and above
In economics, there is a category of multiplier effect. Without going into formulations, let's consider this using the example of the automotive industry, as one of the most multiplicative.
To assemble one copy of vehicles, several dozens of suppliers are involved, which employ thousands of people. Only very irresponsible or fearless governments can derail their own auto industry. For example, in Ukraine, from a certain point on, the automotive industry ceased to exist. It got to the point that the Americans allocated funds for the purchase of morally and physically obsolete KrAZ trucks, while Kyiv acquired Belarusian MAZ trucks for the army. Saving their own automotive industry has always been a priority for the governments of states where they generally know how to build cars.
In Russia, as we can see, they are also taking care of their own multiplicative industries - we are talking about the latest increase in the recycling fee. Which, by the way, has a very vague relation to recycling. All for the sake of stimulating the domestic production of cars and components. The regulator regulates, and the price tags of cars are growing.
In the middle of summer, another industry was launched, capable of pulling a lot of related ones. More precisely, the support program is framed. We are talking about the order of the Government, which approved the Strategy for the Development of Unmanned aviation for the period up to 2030 and for the future up to 2035. Mass production drones should spin up entire production clusters. And everything is like a high-tech selection.
The production of brushless motors, internal combustion engines for heavy UAVs, control electronics, optics and hundreds of other items will have to be localized in Russia. Otherwise, a breakthrough in the industry in such a short time is simply impossible.
The main categories of components that it was decided to build on our own are electric power plants; power supplies for electric power plants; internal combustion engines, hybrid power plants; executive mechanisms; protected satellite receivers; airborne alternative navigation systems; wing, control surfaces, sections and other elements of wing mechanization; unmanned aircraft payload components; secure communication systems and alternative navigation systems; means of identifying and determining the current location of an unmanned aerial vehicle; airborne collision detection and automatic avoidance systems.
It is easier to say that they will not be produced in Russia by 2030-2035 - it looks like drones will eventually become completely sovereign. And the multiplier effect should be impressive. The plans include the integration of two hundred organizations involved in the production of components at once.
A secondary effect of the UAV dash will be a noticeable reduction in the cost of ground-based unmanned systems. First of all, by reducing the cost of control electronics, motors and the production of carbon cases.
The authors of the strategy focused on the development of the civilian UAV segment. Only now the next six and a half years should become a uniform technological revolution. Now the industry drones occupy no more than 0,1 percent of Russia's GDP, and by 2030 should cost at least a trillion rubles. This is neither more nor less than twenty-fold growth.
The level of demand for Russian technologies in this area is evidenced by the export portfolio - the key buyers are Venezuela, Uzbekistan and Sudan. From 2018 to 2022, unmanned products worth 600 million rubles were delivered abroad.
Happy unmanned future
The ideas embodied in the strategy are fair, although they were announced with a huge delay. Like many of the modern, the program should have been born the day before yesterday. But for this, a special operation had to happen, which clearly demonstrated Russia's lag in the construction and production of UAVs.
It’s not even the level of penetration of drones on the battlefield that is interesting, but the scheme. A purely civilian technology has made a leap into the military industry, which was not observed before. Usually, technology transfer happened the other way around - the military shared their developments with non-combatants.
By the way, the second similar example is also characteristic of a special operation. We are talking about low-orbit Starlink satellites, which have seriously strengthened the capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the tactical and operational level.
What drones made in Russia will be in demand in the coming years?
In short, almost everything.
Now there is a shortage of heavy machines capable of monitoring the ice situation and remote sensing of the Earth. Russian users were disconnected from foreign satellite services last year, and domestic orbital constellations cannot yet replace imported ones. There are several projects in the works, for example, low- and medium-orbital "Sphere" and "Marathon", but so far everything is at the level of experiments. Drones should partially replace satellite systems, albeit with a high degree of conventionality.
Also in the priority of the program for agriculture, construction, exploration and delivery of goods to remote areas. There are also exotic directions - for example, "visual installations" or the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for single and group flights in order to demonstrate advertising structures and create visual effects, including the use of pyrotechnics. How much the latter niche will be in demand in Russia by 2030 is not known for certain.
The targets of the program are encouraging. By 2030–2035 the total market volume should be at least 1 million UAVs of various classes and types. At the same time, 85 percent should be domestic cars, and in public procurement, the share of Russian cars is even higher - 92 percent.
By the same milestone, more than a million specialized specialists should appear in the country, ranging from UAV developers to assemblers. From fresh News – The Ministry of Education is promising a UAV course in high school. While in the framework of initial military training. Given the ban on drone flights in sixty regions of Russia, the initiative looks especially relevant.
It will be very difficult to solve the above in a market economy - the country will have to impose protective duties on imported UAVs. Approximately as now, the recycling fee seriously devalues the competition for domestic car factories. If the government does not artificially raise the cost of imported components and finished drones, we will never see domestic cars of an acceptable level.
The temptation to get cheap Chinese motors, controllers and other parts in a roundabout way will be very great. And then it's a matter of technology - we erase the markings and glue our labels. This has already been demonstrated, for example, at Dobrynya.
However, even protective measures are not a panacea - AvtoVAZ and UAZ did not know how to properly build cars, they did not learn. The utilization fee only allows a huge number of enterprises not to go bankrupt and not create social tension.
The only way out is by signing an agreement with the producers.
As an option, the temporary introduction of protective duties on UAV components and a complete ban on the import of finished vehicles. For example, four years. With appropriate financial injections from the state, of course. If manufacturers do not have time to establish their own industry within this period, the borders open. Risky and expensive, but it will at least somehow outline the rules of the game in the near future.
In the permanent absence of competition from imports, it will not be possible to create modern civilian equipment - consumers will be forced to use outright junk. In this case, there is no special meaning in the strategy. And if the borders are opened to imports, the nascent industry will be swept away by the cheap and high-tech DJI or Autel that China is churning out by the hundreds of thousands.
Finding the golden mean is not easy, but it is possible.
As practice shows, modern Russia manages to develop sectors of the economy and industry, the heyday of which happened in the Soviet Union. In this series, the nuclear industry, the military-industrial complex, the aviation industry, space programs and the oil and gas industry.
An exception to the rule, perhaps, can be considered the birth of information ecosystems and public electronic resources. These are various online banking and the famous “Gosuslugi”, which have already appeared in the new Russia. It is very difficult to name at least a couple of other industries that the country has raised from scratch.
The UAV revolution, which is dreamed of in the "Strategy for the Development of Unmanned Aviation", has every chance of being on the sad list of unfinished megaprojects in Russia. Although the very fact of the attention that the government renders to the problem inspires certain hopes.
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