Shattering the 30-Minute Barrier: Dagong Technology’s Tethered UAV Sets 3 World Records at the 2017 Xiamen BRICS Summit
Xiamen, China — When the world’s eyes fixed upon the 2017 Xiamen BRICS Summit, an unassuming aerial platform was quietly rewriting the rules of global broadcast technology. On September 3rd, amid the stringent radio controls and fierce coastal winds of Gulangyu Island, Beijing Dagong Technology’s tethered UAV system shattered the industry’s 30-minute flight barrier, achieving a staggering 48 hours of continuous hovering. In doing so, it didn't just secure the live feed for CCTV—it set three unprecedented world records and firmly established a new global benchmark for industrial-grade drone operations.
For years, aerial broadcast coverage of major international summits relied on traditional camera cranes or battery-dependent drones, the latter plagued by fleeting 30-minute flight times and severe vulnerability to electromagnetic interference. Tasked with providing an uninterrupted 24-hour "God’s-eye view" of the historic venue, Dagong Technology’s engineering team deployed a revolutionary alternative: a ground-powered tethered UAV system. Enduring a grueling month of pre-event debugging—including three rigorous daily stress tests on wind resistance and signal integrity—the system took to the skies and executed a flawless, zero-error performance throughout the summit.
This historic flight was underpinned by three core technological breakthroughs that filled critical domestic technical voids. First, an ultra-long endurance ground high-voltage power supply system enabled the UAV to sustain operations for up to 72 hours (with a tested record of 51 hours). During the summit, the equipment shouldered a grueling 12-hour daily flight load with power stability remaining above 99.8%. Second, an anti-interference dual-frequency optical fiber transmission scheme decisively bypassed the dense 5G signals and strict radio management of the summit, delivering pristine 1080P/60-frame video from a control station 2.5 kilometers away. Finally, a military-grade IP67 safety design allowed the aircraft to maintain a hovering precision of within 0.5 meters, even when assaulted by sudden gusts reaching Force 7 winds (17.2m/s).
The results were transformative, yielding three major industry firsts: the first realization of 4K/60-frame ultra-high-definition live broadcasting via drone, the first completion of a 72-hour continuous flight safeguard capability, and the first replacement of a traditional crane camera at a major international conference. As CCTV’s technical directors noted in their post-event validation report, Dagong’s tethered UAV fundamentally enriched their visual language, allowing global audiences to experience the grandeur of the summit from an unrivaled aerial perspective.
Yet, the ripples of this 2017 milestone extended far beyond a single broadcast. Validated on the world stage of the BRICS Summit, Dagong Technology’s tethered UAV technology rapidly evolved into the foundational infrastructure for China's burgeoning low-altitude economy. Collaborating with Xiamen University through the "Low-Altitude Communication Joint Laboratory," the company forged three pivotal application ecosystems: major event safeguards (successfully covering 23 national-level events, including the Digital China Summit, with over 1,500 cumulative flight hours), emergency communication rescue (deploying tethered UAV high-altitude base stations with an 8-kilometer coverage radius during 2018’s Typhoon Maria in Ningde), and cultural tourism integration (partnering with the Gulangyu Management Committee on the "Air View of Piano Island" project).
Today, building upon relentless R&D since its founding in 2015, Dagong Technology’s tethered UAV product line has iterated into its fourth generation. With maximum altitude limits pushing 500 meters, payload capacities reaching 45kg, and continuous endurance hitting 48 hours, the systems are now exported to 32 countries. From the blue skies above Gulangyu to the epicentre of global attention, the 48-hour record set at the Xiamen BRICS Summit remains a definitive testament to Dagong Technology’s prowess in redefining "aerial productivity" for the low-altitude economy era.
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