DJI has launched the Matrice 5T, a compact enterprise drone whose thermal camera has a native resolution of 1280×1024. That is four times the pixels of the 640×512 thermal sensors that are standard on drones of this size.
The drone is aimed at emergency crews, power-line and bridge inspectors and surveyors rather than hobbyists. Its main trick is seeing in the dark: a wide camera with a 1/0.98-inch sensor reaches an ISO of 1,600,000 and gives full-colour footage down to 0.01 lux, while a thermal mode can be switched to a 2560×2048 view at 30 frames a second.
DJI’s Matrice 5T page says this is the first DJI compact enterprise drone to carry LiDAR, mmWave radar and an all-round vision system together. At night, the LiDAR can pick out power lines from up to 32 m away. In fog, rain or dust the radar takes over, and under bridges or in canyons, where satellite positioning is weak, the drone builds a live map from vision and radar data to stay put.
There are three cameras besides the thermal one. A 50MP medium telephoto offers 3x optical zoom, and DJI says it can see pins and cracks on power lines or bridges from 10 metres away. A second 50MP telephoto goes to 11x optical and 176x hybrid zoom, enough, DJI says, to read a licence plate from 400 m. A laser rangefinder reaches 3 km for marking assets or measuring the edge of a wildfire.
For close-up work in the dark, the telephoto camera has a monochrome night mode with an RYYB colour filter array, which gathers more light per area than a standard RGGB array, and a near-infrared illuminator adds up to 100 m of effective light.
Software is part of the pitch. Built-in AI detects more than 20 kinds of target, and the page describes the onboard AI as open to custom Pilot 2 plugins. Built-in ADS-B and RID receivers warn the pilot of nearby aircraft and drones.
The body is rated IP55 against dust and rain and works from -20 to 50 degrees Celsius. DJI quotes up to 59 minutes of flight time, and the O4 Enterprise link supports several relay modes to extend range.
The remote controller can show up to three feeds at once, from the wide camera, telephoto, thermal, a map and the Vision Assist view, and thermal and visible images can be blended with a dial so temperature alerts appear on the visible picture.
DJI’s page carries no price or sale date, so what buyers pay and where it ships are still unknown.
