Taiwan's UAV National Team will take shape in the second half of this year, and more than 3,000 UAVs under "Military Commercial Regulations" are expected to be mass-produced this year and delivered next year for field use.

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[Reporter Ou Yuxiang/Report from Taipei] Taiwan's major optical manufacturers focus on lenses for consumer electronics products. However, with the recent development of drones and satellites, the optical industry has also become an important player in the supply chain.

Due to the rising demand, Taiwanese factories are also expected to usher in business opportunities, including Yaguang and Zhongyang Optical, which produce unmanned vehicle lenses, and Baosheng Optics is a member of the supply chain of Fuwei No. 8.

Research firm TrendForce pointed out that countries are actively investing in the deployment of military drones. It is estimated that from 2022 to 2025, the global military drone market will grow from 16.5 billion to 34.3 billion Dollar.

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Compared with mobile phone lenses, lenses mounted on unmanned vehicles have more stringent requirements on the use environment and weight, and the pursuit of higher resolution. In terms of resolution, use environment, and customer requirements, the manufacturing difficulty is no less than that of mobile phone and car lenses.

Zhong Yangguang pointed out that due to limited application environment considerations, glass lenses are often selected for drone lenses, especially aspherical glass molded lenses with low thermal expansion coefficients are given priority.

Zhong Yangguang said that the production of aspheric glass molded lenses and other technologies have matured. At present, several unmanned vehicle trial production and development projects in North America and Taiwan have been obtained. North American brand customers are already close partners, and unmanned vehicles are expected in the future. There will be options outside the Chinese brand.

In the field of commercial and special application UAVs, it will also be equipped with optical lenses for non-visible light and special applications, and will continue to move towards a professional optical lens manufacturer for unmanned vehicles.

In addition, Yaguang has also deployed lenses for vehicles and unmanned vehicles for many years. The market expects that product lines such as lenses for vehicles and drones, and sports camera lenses will still be able to drive business growth this year.

The Executive Yuan has recently actively invested in the budget to establish a national space industry supply chain and support the domestic aerospace industry.

Baosheng Optics is a major manufacturer of glass lenses, and its product applications also involve aerospace.

Baosheng Optics said that in order for optical lenses to go into space, they need to overcome many conditions such as inability to repair, strict size restrictions, light weight, shock resistance, extreme high and low temperature resistance, and radiation protection. At present, they have entered the supply chain to assist in the development and production of Fu Wei The correction lens group equipped on No. 8.

TrendForce said that judging from the case of the Ukrainian-Russian War, UAVs have great operational benefits and will definitely be one of the key military equipment development projects in the future.

Chen Guanxian, a researcher at the Modern Cultural Foundation, pointed out that drones and aerospace fields are already an important part of national defense, and the optical industry plays an important role. In the next stage, Taiwan will move forward in the direction of supply chain integration and independent production.

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