Chinese legislator urges to enhance drone usage in border regions: Global Times.

BEIJING -- A Chinese legislator who leads a regiment in the country's southwestern border defense frontline will submit a proposal at the upcoming two sessions, suggesting that China should enhance border management and control by deploying more smart equipment like drones, as his experience and research indicate huge room for improvement despite the wide use of such devices by the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

To tackle current issues, which included short endurance, high dependence on weather conditions and insufficient payload capacity resulting from the initial commissioning of only easy-to-use, small drones, the PLA could use more sophisticated, larger drones in its arsenal, experts said on Sunday.

The proposal came after a months-long border standoff between China and India started by Indian troops' provocations since April last year.

Hou Yun, the commander of a border defense regiment affiliated with the PLA Tibet Military Command and also National People's Congress deputy, would submit the proposal at this year's two sessions, which were scheduled to convene in a week.

Having garrisoned at the plateau region for 22 years, Hou told that he believed it was important to accelerate the development and commissioning of smart equipment that could cover the entire border defense frontlines and monitor the regions at all times, boosting the PLA troops' situational awareness and sensitivity.

"The goal is to resolve three key problems: to see where people can't see, hear where people can't hear and go where people can't go", Hou said.

Hou recently led a patrol team to a valley at an elevation of 4,000 meters. The patrol route is more than 80 kilometers long and sees the troops passing through various terrains including jungles, glaciers and snowy mountains, and many scout positions are inaccessible by humans during the rainy or snowy seasons.

Soldiers told Hou that while Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also called drones, are in wide use already, they have short endurance, are vulnerable to rain and face challenges in reconnaissance missions in foggy weather, which is common in the region.

It is also hoped that drones can increase the efficiency of transport missions, as they are becoming widely used to deliver supplies to remote outposts that are otherwise challenging to reach.

Drones currently in use by the frontline troops are mainly small or medium-sized multi-rotor drones, a PLA veteran who conducted missions in Southwest China's...