DJI Releases a New Industrial Application-Level Drone That Can Clearly See License Plates 250 Meters Away | Product Observation

Text｜Hu Yiting

Editor｜Yuan Silai

Hundreds of meters of high-voltage power towers stand in the wilderness, mountains, or the Gobi Desert. The steel tower bodies and high-voltage cables are intimidating.

Every year, maintenance personnel come to the huge steel towers many times to complete power inspections. During this process, they need to climb to the top of the tower to complete the inspection of the overall and local details of the tower structure, conductors, insulators, lightning conductors, etc. Manual maintenance is inefficient, and the risks of working at high altitudes and with high voltages are difficult to avoid.

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and image monitoring have begun to enter the inspection field. Equipped with detection methods such as infrared temperature measurement, inspectors can remotely and in real-time monitor the operating conditions of ultra-high voltage line equipment.

Recently, DJI has also released new products Matrice 4E and Matrice 4T for industry applications such as public safety, inspection, and mapping.

Matrice 4E focuses on high-precision mapping. It can conduct autonomous close-up shooting close to the target and is equipped with the D-RTK 3 multi-functional station. Even if the signal is interrupted in the mountainous area, this multi-functional station can be used as a signal relay to ensure that the signal is not interrupted in complex terrain areas. In addition, the positioning ability of 4E has also been greatly improved, which can be upgraded from the original meter-level positioning to centimeter-level.

Matrice 4T is mainly for the all-round capabilities of the industry. Compared with previous products, it has been improved in terms of intelligence, adaptability to complex environments, and safety. Among them, after determining the position of the target point, Matrice 4T can fly at a fixed speed and circle or follow the target, and measure data such as length and area in real-time.

In addition to upgrading hardware and functions, DJI also integrates computing power into UAVs, making the two products have AI attributes in aspects such as detection and following.

After the continuous improvement of hardware functions and the gradual maturity of new technologies, consumer-grade UAVs may be difficult to carry application imaginations other than the ultimate experience, while regular operations such as inspection, mapping, and even rescue have put forward new demands for UAVs.

Technology Integration

Several years ago, UAVs began to enter industry applications such as inspection and mapping. Now, some areas have started to carry out human + UAV operations. The Matrice 4E and Matrice 4T launched this time combine DJI's previous technological accumulation and are upgraded again in terms of imaging and flight capabilities.

Compared with consumer-level shooting, inspection scenarios such as bridges and power towers require seeing small targets such as bolts at a certain distance, which tests the zooming ability and image stability of the camera.

Thread details captured by the Matrice 4 series, Image source: DJI

The Matrice 4 series adds a three-fold focal length to enhance the continuous zooming experience. The newly equipped seven-fold focal length camera with 112x hybrid zoom can clearly see license plates from 250 meters away. After the rangefinder is turned on, users can also see the distance to the target in real-time, and the observation distance is twice that achievable with the previous generation of aircraft.

In order to keep the inspection images stable and clear under abnormal circumstances, DJI has previously launched the Zenmuse Z30 with 30x optical zoom and the H20 system with hybrid zoom products. With technological accumulation, the Matrice 4 series is equipped with foreground stabilization, EIS, electronic defogging, and lens heating functions.

In addition to enhancing the daytime operation ability, this generation of products also strengthens the night vision function and low-light performance, and can fly stably under urban lights at night. In terms of flight control, DJI adopts fusion positioning technology. Even when the satellite signal is interfered with, the Matrice 4 series UAVs can switch to the visual mode to complete the flight mission.

The Matrice 4 series, Image source: DJI

Cui Yu, an engineer of DJI's industry application solution, said that before the appearance of these two products, many customers in the industry application have already started to use DJI's UAV products. In addition to clear long-distance imaging, after 2019, the team also independently developed the DJI Terra reconstruction software, which combines UAV technology with photogrammetry technology. Through UAV images, users can know the specific location, length, and width of the house.

Imaging is the basic requirement of UAVs in shooting. When entering the industry in depth, more detailed operational problems will emerge.

For example, during power inspection, the UAV needs to fly close to the tower. However, the structure of the high-voltage power tower is complex and there is a strong magnetic field around it. During the flight, the UAV is easily interfered with or the components of the power tower are damaged. This tests the pilots' control and spatial perception ability of the UAV's flight altitude and attitude.

Cui Yu told Yingke that to truly complete the power inspection task relatively well, the training period for power pilots requires at least 1 - 2 years. With the large-scale promotion of UAV products in the industry, the training of pilots still restricts the rapid popularization of products.

On the product side, to solve these problems as much as possible, DJI introduces high-precision positioning technology into the Matrice 4 series to make it have intelligent operation capabilities.

Specifically, the two products can achieve precise repeated shooting and autonomous flight. The pilot only needs to formulate the flight route and upload it. Put the UAV on the site, and it can automatically execute the flight route. The pilot can be liberated from the complex execution tasks and only needs to focus on the task formulation and the inspection effect.

In order to further liberate the manpower and adapt to more regular operation scenarios, DJI has equipped the two products with its self-developed "SkyHub 2" remote management platform. When flying automatically, the pilot can also see the operation situation in real-time; the shot materials can also be immediately sent back to this platform and be uniformly managed and processed in the cloud to reduce the risk of secondary sorting and loss.

Hardware ensures clear and stable imaging, and software improves the later-stage efficiency. These two UAV products are expected to be more naturally integrated into the workflow of industry users. When really entering the industry, adapting to different segmented scenarios and solving more specific problems may become their main direction.

Incorporating AI

When AI has entered the stage of industry application, DJI also combines the large model capability with UAV hardware, strengthens the computing power, and opens it to the third party.

Before the birth of Matrice 4E and Matrice 4T, DJI has launched several generations of computer onboard "Manifold" series in terms of computing power. The detection and recognition capabilities of the new generation of UAVs also come from the built-in computing power module. This enables the UAV to detect and identify targets such as people, vehicles, and ships at a long distance during flight, and complete the following task after confirming the target.

Cui Yu introduced that this generation of products focuses on strengthening the detection ability of small targets at a long distance and has the functions of alarm and quantity statistics. In the image transmission screen, the current computing power can support the detection of up to 128 targets, and the maximum detection of 1000 targets in the photo.

In addition to the official large model, DJI also opens the third-party detection model for customization by industry customers. For example, in the construction scene, the third-party detection model can detect the situation of personnel and observe whether they wear helmets.

When inspecting inside the house, due to the older age of many residential houses, the wall of the house may have hollowing or water seepage. The new generation of products can be discriminated through the UAV thermal imaging technology. After the data is collected and an image is formed, it will analyze the changes in different temperatures and regions to determine whether there is hollowing or water seepage. If there is a suspected target, it will warn the operators for maintenance.

Executing the inspection task of the house facade, Image source: DJI

In order to achieve the application of more scenarios, developers can download the model training file on the developer website launched by DJI. After the model is trained, it can also be uploaded to this platform for quantization and model performance verification, and then distributed.

The Matrice 4 series all have AI functions. In terms of product positioning, Matrice 4E focuses more on the mapping scene. It adds the close-range photogrammetry function, which can be used for various types of building mapping.

Compared with the previous cumbersome process where users need to collect the rough model in the software, form the flight route and send the aircraft for execution, Matrice 4E can complete the above steps autonomously in the remote controller, that is, automatic modeling, generating a close-range flight route and autonomously collecting data close to the building surface, improving the operation efficiency while reducing the use threshold.

When launching the two products, DJI also added accessories such as a megaphone and a searchlight . The megaphone can shout in real-time, and the broadcasting distance is up to 300 meters.

The Matrice 4 series is for industry applications. In addition to being equipped with the official large model, software platform, and hardware capabilities, it also provides customization space for segmented industries. After the product is launched, it will carry out the distribution model for industry customers and enter the market verification stage.