Remember Airobotics with its industry-disrupting automated industrial drone system? Well, DJI now has a similar system too. Aptly called DJI Dock, it works with the new Matrice 30 Enterprise Drone and the new DJI FlightHub 2, DJI Enterprise’s fleet management software, to open for new possibilities in fields that require 24/7 monitoring, including infrastructure inspection, site monitoring, et cetera.
The Dock
DJI Dock is fully automated but it can also be manned from another location using FlightHub 2 when required. But that wouldn’t be as cool, would it? The real selling point here is automation. The DJI Dock is an autonomous takeoff, landing, and charging station allowing fully automatic, programmed flights with the DJI M30 Series (Dock Version).
Once set up, a fully charged M30 drone can take off to the skies from the DJI Dock through FlightHub 2 programmed automatic missions anywhere within a 7 km (4.3 miles) radius. When it returns, recharging will start automatically through its fast charging and battery cooling system. And 25 minutes after it landed, it is ready to get back into action.
DJI Dock is designed for outdoor deployment (obviously) and as such, it was built to last with minimal care and maintenance. It is weatherproof, with the dock IP55 rated and the core internal components, IP67 rated.
Moreover, the dock’s interior is climate controlled to ensure optimal temperature for charging the M30 safely with external temperatures ranging from -35 to 50 degrees Celsius (-31-122 Fahrenheit).
There is a port that provides for an external 4G dongle for expanded connectivity while an internal battery serves as a UPS to ensure continual operation in the event of an outage.
The Dock is self-sufficient, featuring built-in antennas and integrates a weather station, ultra-wide-angle surveillance cameras, and a D-RTK base station. Unlike Airobotics’ system, DJI Dock is surprisingly compact, with a footprint of less than a square meter (11 square feet) and weighing in at just 90 kilograms (198 lbs).
The Drone
The DJI M30 is DJI Enterprise’s flagship drone that adopts a folding design for easy transport. It touts multiple high-performance sensors into one single camera payload and it is, of course, engineered to seamlessly integrate with DJI FlightHub 2 and DJI Dock (duh).
It comes with a 48 MP 1/2” CMOS sensor zoom camera with 5-15x optical and 200x digital zoom, a 12 MP wide-angle camera, 8K photo 4K/30fps video resolution, and a laser rangefinder that is capable of providing precise coordinates of objects to 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) away.
There is a thermal camera version that boasts an additional 640x512px radiometric thermal camera.
Availability
The DJI M30 comes with the redesigned RC Plus remote controller, a set of batteries, and a charging box, and it is available to buy from DJI online store and DJI Enterprise dealers.
FlightHub 2 is open for testing for all users starting today through to October 31, 2022. As for the DJI Dock, it is currently being tested and will be available in Q4 2022. Pricing is yet to be announced.
All images courtesy of DJI.