The highly versatile and configurable Matrice 200 was just unveiled by DJI in the last week, a much needed addition to the world of industrial drones. It is a promising aircraft and many people in the drone community are quite excited about its upcoming appearance in the skies of the world.
It seems the DJI has introduced a few new technologies to their latest creation, technologies that could soon trickle on down to some of the consumer drones that are no doubt on the way to being released very soon. Let's take a look at some of the features of this new drone that may indicate things to come later this year.
The removable gimbal onboard the drone allows for the pilot to put on a number of different possible cameras, including infrared ones. The technology has already appeared on the Inspire series and it may not be long before we see some of DJIs smaller consumer drones embracing this feature. For the commercial pilot this means that you can quickly swap out one type of camera and put on another in little to no time. Or you could have a couple on at the same time in the M210.
A few pilots have experienced battery failure in flights and that means your drone quickly becomes a lead balloon. The new dual battery setup means that if your lead battery fails during flight that the other battery will take over without any interruption in your flight. This gives huge peace of mind. Not only that, when the first battery is depleted you can replace it without actually powering the drone off, something that will mean little to no effect on operation time. A huge plus in the eyes of our team.
The new Airsense technology is DJIs answer to the threat that many people are worried about when it comes to big aircraft being taken down by a drone. Airsense aboard the drone means that the operator will be aware of any manned aircraft in the vicinity sporting ADS-B transmitters which give the velocity, altitude and position of the plane so that the uav pilot can take all possible steps to avoid collision. Of course you will still be flying the drone under the rules laid out by Transport Canada, but occasionally other aircraft may stray off their path too.
The DJI Mavic Pro introduced the folding technology that allows it to be stored in a compact space and easily launched in under a minute. The Matrice 200 is a much bigger aircraft, but it too is sporting similar fold out arms, allowing operations to be conducted much more rapidly, especially when multiple launch sites are required for Visual Line Of Sight operations. It also means a more compact travel case which is important for minimizing the amount of equipment you show up on site with.
It remains to be seen what the cost of this aircraft will be, but that shouldn't affect many larger operations from snapping it up quickly. And if you have been waiting for a consumer drone to sport any of the above features, you may not be waiting too much longer.
