Exclusive reveal: 79 days and nights of fierce battle to achieve CCTV Spring Festival Gala drone formation performance show

On New Year's Eve, a drone fleet jointly created by Gaoju Innovation and Zero Degree Intelligent Control made a stunning appearance at the 2018 CCTV Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Dog. The "Big Red Lantern" 3D dolphin and fireworks seagull, performances that combined a sense of technology and beauty, were breathtaking.

The drone formations appeared at the opening call signs and fireworks shows after the countdown at the Beijing main venue, Zhuhai venue and Sanya venue respectively. The director team arranged such an important role for them that they can be said to be "very successful" in the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.

One day the wind rises, soaring up to 90,000 miles

Fireworks Seagull

 

In the New Silk Road program at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in Sanya, a fleet of "Seagulls" formed by drones appeared at the beginning of the program, shining brightly in the sky, extremely dazzling.

The "Fireworks Seagull" guides the New Silk Road with a magnificent momentum, presenting a gift to China's development, implying that in the future, China's economy will soar up to 90,000 miles like a roc in the wind, and start a new journey in the new era!

The giant Kun has ambitions for the seas and rivers, but how can a lake be enough to measure them?

The stunning "Dolphins Leaping in the Lingdingyang" was created by a drone fleet for the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, carefully produced for the Lingdingyang, and a visual feast tailored for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.

The theme of the 2018 CCTV Spring Festival Gala Zhuhai branch is "Science and Technology, Ecology, and Culture". The 3D "dolphin" composed of drones not only interprets the theme of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala Zhuhai branch, which is "Science and Technology, Ecology, and Culture", but also adds a romantic and dreamy atmosphere to the story of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and the Chinese white dolphins.

 

3D dolphin-shaped drone formation

 

While the audience was still intoxicated by this beautiful performance, fireworks were set off on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, dazzling and blessing the new year. After the fireworks faded, the drone formation once again transformed into the "New Era" and appeared before our eyes, corresponding to the "Set Sail" composed of 100 unmanned boats on the sea. "Set Sail in the New Era" shows the joy of people in their happy lives welcoming the New Year, celebrating the Spring Festival, and blessing the new era!

 

A new era begins

The stunning appearance of the integrated formation of drones, unmanned vehicles and unmanned ships on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala stage not only demonstrated the continuous development of China's artificial intelligence technology, but also demonstrated the achievements of China's comprehensive development in culture, economy and technology.

 

 

Big red lanterns flying high, celebrating the New Year with great prosperity

Drone Lantern

 

 

In fact, Gaoju’s innovative drone formations appear in places you least expect, denden denden lanterns!

In the first program of CCTV Spring Festival Gala, drones appeared quietly. Yes, this big red lantern that flexibly flutters in the air is made by the technology provided by Gaoju Innovation.

At this moment of reunion and joy, drone lanterns “jumped for joy” in the air above the studio, alternating between taking off and landing, adding to the festive atmosphere.

From hanging big red lanterns high to flying big red lanterns high, this small creativity not only reflects the drone performance team's persistent pursuit of innovation and change in program conception and production, but also implies that this new year will be prosperous and the Chinese dream will continue to take off.

Behind the gorgeous stage effects are the engineers’ hard work day and night, the volunteers’ wholehearted cooperation, and the drone formation team’s pursuit of excellence.

Let's go behind the scenes and see what happened here

 

Special performance environment

Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and TAKE drone

 

 

 

The "fully dressed" stage is magnificent, but the high-power lighting at the performance site and the electromagnetic interference generated by cable equipment are all unfavorable factors for drone flight.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is a huge steel structure, and the bridge is covered with thick cables. Therefore, the magnetic field at the performance site has a great interference with the flight of the drone. In addition, the colorful light and shadow system at the scene also affects the accurate positioning of the drone's flight path. All these unfavorable factors are severely testing the drone's flight control system.

Due to the complex on-site environment of the main venue in Beijing, the eight big red lanterns were all manually controlled for safety reasons. After more than a month of training, the eight pilots finally presented a wonderful performance to the audience.

 

Adverse weather conditions

Flying over the Sanya International Cruise Port and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is affected by an irresistible factor: the sea breeze.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge winds across the vast sea of Lingdingyang like a giant dragon. The fierce wind from the ocean hits the drone directly without any hindrance.

During the rehearsal, due to the influence of the cold wave, the weather in Zhuhai was very unfavorable for drone flights. The temperature on site was close to zero degrees at night and the wind speed reached a level 9 gale.

These harsh conditions are a severe test for the stability of drone flight and its power system.

 

Strict sea, land and air formation performance

 

 

On the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the country's top technology companies gathered together, and the "sea, land and air" high-tech formation composed of Gaoju Innovation, Zero Intelligent Control, Baidu, and BYD showed the unique charm of the integration of culture and technology. While executing the dance plan, the drone formation must echo with the unmanned ship formation on the sea and the unmanned car formation on the bridge to form an interaction. In the "Set Sail, New Era" segment, it is necessary to complete the word formation synchronously with the unmanned ship on the water, and also echo with the unmanned car on the bridge. This has high requirements for the control of time, space, and communication of the three-party formation, because only when the three parties are completed synchronously can the performance effect be considered up to standard.

 

Difficulties vs. Professional Team

Severe test vs. superb technology

 

 

Although this program faced so many difficulties and problems occurred frequently during the rehearsal process, Gaoju Zero Degree, as a professional drone formation team, overcame difficulties and persevered in order to present a wonderful performance to the audience. After brainstorming again and again, they finally planned a perfect solution for this mission.

 

Strict and systematic screening of good products

 

Within a month and a half of receiving the performance task, Gaoju Innovation immediately produced 700 "upgraded" drone products for the Spring Festival Gala, and conducted a full range of tests on them to eliminate defective products. Any products with the slightest deviation were excluded from the formation. After thousands of hours of testing and tens of thousands of take-offs and landings, the best 400 drones were finally selected for the performance, fundamentally ensuring that the quality of the drones could meet the on-site requirements of the formation flight.

 

Advanced and powerful technical support

Forming more than 100 drones outdoors places extremely high demands on communication technology. Engineers need to optimize data structures, increase bandwidth, ensure the normal real-time communication network of the formation drones, and execute dance moves to high standards. Coupled with the colorful lights on the drones, a wonderful performance can be presented to audiences across the country.

 

Intensive preparation

 

 

Engineers used high-precision positioning technology with centimeter-level positioning accuracy, so the drone can fly accurately along the pre-set route, complete complex dance steps, and accurately land at the preset location. This is the first time that this technology has been used in 3D outdoor drone formations in China.

In order to combat adverse factors such as bad weather and magnetic field interference, engineers constantly adjusted the flight control parameters according to the on-site conditions, so that it could fly stably and perform the performance movements accurately under strong interference. People can't help but admire the powerful power and stable system of the drone.

In the unmanned formation performance of the trinity of sea, land and air, the drone team established a highly efficient response tool, constantly adjusted the plan and ultimately achieved seamless coordination with the performances of unmanned vehicles and unmanned ships, jointly presenting a three-dimensional, exquisite, dreamy and shocking performance effect.

 

 

Pursuit of excellence

 

During the rehearsal period, the performance plan was modified more than a dozen times, including the form of formation take-off and landing, the rhythm of flashing lights, the trajectory of the "dolphin" movement, etc. In order to make the "dolphin" brighter and shining, the program group decided to modify the lighting effects only a few days before the live broadcast of the Spring Festival Gala. The Gaoju Zero Degree UAV team quickly executed the plan, allocating materials from Shenzhen to Zhuhai on the same day, and modifying the LED lights of 300 drones on site. This seemingly troublesome approach is actually for the purpose of making the performance of the show perfect.

The drones equipped with high-brightness LED lights took off like colorful fireflies, "assembled" into a square formation in the air, and then slowly transformed into a bright and beautiful "dolphin". The "dolphin" drew an arc in the sky above the Lingdingyang Sea with a graceful body, and "jumped" over the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. After jumping over the bridge, the drones regrouped into a square formation, returned to the take-off point, and landed in rows, like a pouring water curtain, continuous and smooth.

In order to make the fireworks seagull present the most dazzling effect, the team traveled to famous domestic fireworks production sites three times to conduct on-site tests. Taking into account factors such as spraying distance, burning time, and firing effect, they selected the most suitable one from more than ten kinds of fireworks for the performance.

In order to perform without any mistakes, the pilots at the main venue in Beijing trained for more than a month. Even when they were feeling unwell, they still insisted on practicing to present such a wonderful and cool show to the audience.

 

Efficient and tacit teamwork

Drone formation performance team at the Zhuhai branch of the Spring Festival Gala

 

The engineers of the drone formation fought side by side with volunteers from Beijing Institute of Technology Zhuhai and Sanya City in this "journey", and they established a deep "revolutionary friendship". With such a tacit understanding, each formation flight was carried out very quickly and efficiently, ensuring the smooth performance of the show. Salute to the unremitting Spring Festival Gala drone formation team.

While presenting the audience with a colorful visual feast with a strong sense of technology and art, Gaoju Innovative UAVs also proved that China's ultra-large-scale formation performances are at the forefront of the world and showed the world China's high-altitude power!