35-year-old Huang Xin, a native of Wuhan, was a successful clothing retailer just over a year ago. At his peak, he operated 12 stores across the province, with annual revenue approaching 30 million yuan (approximately $4.2 million USD). However, in September of last year, he abruptly closed all his shops and dove headfirst into drone research and development.

“Before, doing business was purely for the money,” he recently told reporters. “Now, I want to do something meaningful.” Huang Xin explained his company's situation.

He is now developing drones for bridge inspections. His father, hospitalized and unable to speak, gave him a thumbs-up when he learned of his son's new venture.

When meeting Huang Xin at his company, he appeared younger than his 35 years, with slightly wavy hair, a white T-shirt, and dark blue jeans. He speaks quickly and clearly.

Huang Xin was an early adopter of consumer drones, purchasing one in 2012 when they first became popular. He used it for aerial photography during his spare time, while running his clothing business.

Last year, he observed workers inspecting bridges under several overpasses. They were perched on mechanical platforms dozens of meters high, holding cameras up to photograph cracks. Inspecting a 100-meter bridge required holding the camera up for half an hour.

“Why not just fly a drone under there?” Huang Xin thought. But he was also aware that GPS signals are nearly non-existent under bridges, and a drone would “become unsteady, like a drunk person.”

During that period, his father was seriously ill and hospitalized. Huang Xin spent his days managing the stores and nights at the hospital. In the quiet hours, the idea became clearer: he wanted to solve the problem of drones being unable to stabilize under bridges.

In September last year, Huang Xin cleared his slate, founded Wuhan Yijie Technology Co., Ltd., and assembled a team to focus on a single goal: building a drone that could fly stably under bridges.

“The R&D team didn't understand me because I wasn't speaking their language,” Huang Xin admitted. Although he had flown drones for over a decade, he was a layman when it came to development.

Team member Yao Rui recalled that when Huang Xin first proposed the idea, he asked, “Can the drone not fall when it hits a bridge pillar?” Yao's initial reaction was, “That's impossible. What drone can survive a collision without crashing?”

The request was rejected, and the product stalled. Huang Xin realized, “They don't understand what I want because my academic level isn't up to theirs. So I'll learn.”

For the next six months, Huang Xin immersed himself in drone textbooks and technical forums, mastering the fundamentals of drone construction, mainstream technologies, and the latest applications. When he returned to the R&D team, he rephrased his request: he wanted a collision-proof outer shell and a more powerful flight attitude adjustment system than typical aerial photography drones.

Three months later, the team had equipped the drone with a flexible spherical shell and an AI-powered automatic attitude adjustment system. The entire machine looks like a flying, hollow soccer ball, capable of quickly adjusting its attitude upon impact, making it less prone to crashing.

The core technology of Yijie Technology's drones is the SLAM autonomous navigation system. Huang Xin explains it simply: “It's like a robot vacuum cleaner that navigates, avoids obstacles, and returns to its charging station on its own. That's exactly how our drone operates under a bridge.”

On July 24, Yijie Technology's drone successfully completed a test inspection flight under the Zhongfa Friendship Bridge. In the absence of GPS signals, it flew the entire water surface in 30 minutes, scanning the bridge structure with a high-definition camera. An inspection report can be generated in just three days.

“This gave us a lot of confidence,” Huang Xin said. Thanks to a referral from the district's Economic and Science Bureau, the company secured investment from the “Spark Seedling” fund. The Jianghan Economic Development Zone is also introducing new application scenarios, and the support has allowed him to intensify R&D efforts.

Currently, Huang Xin is tackling autonomous inspection technology for the Yangtze River Bridge. “Bridges that cross large rivers have vast water surfaces with no reference points, making it easy for the drone to lose its way. We're working on solving this problem,” he said. He plans to further enhance battery life and collaborate more deeply with professional surveying companies to integrate more efficiently into daily urban management.

From inspecting cracks in buildings, monitoring crop growth, checking warehouse inventory, to measuring building settlement—any task that requires someone to hold an instrument and inspect meticulously, Huang Xin wants to replace with drones. “Drones can do so much more. Many industries are still in need of such new tools,” he said.