These drones see in the dark
SAN FRANCISCO – The world’s largest drone maker has teamed up with the nation’s largest thermal camera company to create ready-to-fly drones that can see in the dark.
The drone maker is DJI, a China-based company that currently has about 70% of the world drone market.
The camera is by FLIR Systems, a Wilsonville, Ore.-based thermal and infrared imaging company.
The collaboration will produce drones that can be used in search-and-rescue, firefighting, security and surveillance.
At a news conference Thursday, the companies showed video shot from one of the infrared-capable drones in which several people walking in a pitch black field at night looked like brightly lit light bulbs moving across the rough ground.
Their joint product is called the Zenmuse XT. It will allow users to control the camera in flight, shoot infrared video or still photos and wirelessly transmit the live images in the dark, through smoke, haze or brush.
“It’s surprising no one did this before, this is low-hanging fruit,” said Colin Snow, a San Francisco-based drone analyst.
An off-the-shelf, see-in-the-dark drone hasn't been available before this. While DJI and other companies sell camera-equipped drones, up until now anyone who wanted to gather thermal images with a drone had to cobble their own rig together, Snow said.
The drones will first be of interest to fire departments and search and rescue groups.
“They’re looking for something they can take out of the box and fly over a fire, they don’t want to fiddle with it,” Snow said.
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For FLIR, drones are the perfect way to position its sensors in three-dimensional space, said Jeff Frank, the company’s senior vice president of strategy.
One market he envisions is companies using infrared-capable drones to fly over and through industrial settings, looking for hot spots that could indicate leaks or pressure build-ups.
“Through the drone, I can see things the human eye doesn’t see,” said Frank. “It’s like a sixth sense.”
The Zenmuse XT drone combines DJI’s Zenmuse stabilized micro-gimbal technology, a common platform for aerial cinematography, with FLIR’s popular Tau 2 thermal imaging camera.
The companies plan to release the Zenmuse XT in the first quarter of 2016. Pricing has yet to be determined, said DJI's director of strategic partnerships Michael Perry.
While infrared-equipped drones might be a niche application, “the market is huge,” said Snow. “Think how many fire houses there are in the United States. Or how many engineering firms that do heat sensing.”
Drones, known to the Federal Aviation Administration as unmanned aerial vehicles, are an emerging market that could be worth billions as it matures. However today it is relatively small.