Held in Lijiang, Yunnan Province from October 28 to 30, 2026, the 2026 UAV Remote Sensing Academic Conference was co-hosted by the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Aerospace Information (to be established) and the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals. As a supporting organization of the conference, Honeycomb Aerospace exhibited its HC-545 VTOL fixed-wing UAV. The team engaged in face-to-face exchanges with domestic remote sensing experts, university research teams and industry peers, and shared practical outcomes of multi-payload integration and SAR remote sensing applications for UAVs, earning recognition from the industry.

The conference gathered more than 100 academicians, scholars and technical professionals nationwide in the remote sensing field. It covered a wide range of UAV development themes including low-altitude economy, hyperspectral remote sensing, radar remote sensing, LiDAR remote sensing, agricultural remote sensing, marine remote sensing, disaster remote sensing, low-altitude platforms and flight tests, balancing theoretical research, core technology breakthroughs and industrial development. At the exhibition, the HC-545 compound wing UAV attracted wide attention. Featuring a modular design and highly compatible universal mounting interfaces, the platform can flexibly carry multiple remote sensing payloads such as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), LiDAR, electro-optical payloads and aerial survey cameras to meet diverse research and engineering requirements.

During exchanges, many experts showed keen interest in the application cases of the HC-545 equipped with SAR payloads. SAR is immune to cloud, fog and illumination constraints, enabling all-time earth observation over mountainous and cloudy-rainy areas. It well addresses the practical pain points of remote sensing surveys over complex terrain in Lijiang and the broader southwest region. Leveraging the HC-545's strengths of long endurance, heavy payload capacity and flexible takeoff and landing, this SAR remote sensing system has delivered stable and reliable data results in projects such as geological surveys, deformation monitoring and resource inventory, providing strong support for relevant research work.

Participating experts spoke positively of Honeycomb Aerospace's practical achievements in UAV platform and SAR payload integration. They also extended their gratitude to the team during the conference, acknowledging the practical value of this airborne SAR solution for scientific trials and field remote sensing operations. Many attending researchers stopped by the booth to hold in-depth discussions with Honeycomb Aerospace technicians on practical issues involving payload matching, flight tests and data processing, and explored opportunities for joint trials and research collaborations in the future.

A representative from Honeycomb Aerospace stated that remote sensing research imposes demanding requirements on UAV platforms in terms of stability, payload expansion capability and adaptability to complex environments. The HC-545 was designed as an open, reliable general-purpose carrier platform for remote sensing, enabling research teams to freely configure payloads according to project needs and lower the barriers to field flight tests. Moving forward, the team will continue to focus on airborne SAR and multi-source remote sensing payload integration, and keep optimizing the platform's compatibility with radar, optical and LiDAR payloads. It will maintain close collaboration with universities and research institutes to deliver more robust remote sensing application outcomes, and help expand the application scope of UAV remote sensing technologies to broader and more advanced scenarios.