Welcome to the weekly UAS news update. We have three stories for you this week: Anzu Robotics releases the Raptor, we have some new DJI releases, and then we have a drone show at Sun ‘n Fun that was absolutely amazing. So let’s get to it.
AnzuRobotics Releases the Raptor
First up this week, Anzu Robotics has released the Raptor and the Raptor T. The Raptor has a four thirds 20-megapixel wide camera and a 1/2″ 12-megapixel telephoto lens with a hybrid zoom up to 56x. The Raptor T has a 1/2″ 48-megapixel wide camera, a 1/2″ 12-megapixel telephoto lens, and a 640×512 longwave infrared camera.
These specs might look familiar because they are the specs from the DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise and the Mavic 3 Thermal. What Anzu has done is actually buy the rights to make this drone themselves using different software. Both of these models also have the RTK module, a 9km range, and a 45-minute flight time.
They are an American-based company that’s operated out of Austin, Texas. Anzu has also partnered with Aloft, the LAANC provider that you know and love, to provide the software and the integrated LAANC request for the Raptor series. We’ll see about getting our hands on one of those, but if you want more information on this, we actually did a full interview right here with Randall Warnas, who happens to be the CEO of Anzu Robotics. You can find that on the PIXL Drone Show page. If you’re not familiar with PIXL, we took a little bit of a break for a lot of different reasons, but we are back with Haye from DroneXL where we interview a bunch of different people from the industry, including this interview right here.
DJI Releases Trust Center and Battery Banks
Next up this week, DJI has released yet another product, actually two things. First off is the DJI TRUST Center and then also two new battery banks. The DJI Trust Center is designed to assist consumers and enterprise users with better understanding privacy controls and data encryption that are available on DJI drones. That’s a great resource to learn about what security measures are available on a particular set of drones. We’ll leave a link down below if you want to learn more about this.
DJI also released another product, making it three in the span of two weeks – the Avata 2, the RS 4 gimbal, and now an actual battery bank, which is something that we were not really expecting. They released two different versions: the Power 500 and the Power 1000 battery banks.
The banks use an intelligent battery management system with a lifespan of up to 3,000 charge cycles or 10 years. The accessories for the power banks include solar panel adapters, a car charging cable, solar panels possibly, DJI fast charge cables, and a 12V DC output cable for other devices.
DJI is also offering a three-year warranty if you order directly from their website, with an extended coverage available for up to 5 years. The banks both support fast charging for DJI Mavic 3, Air 2S, Matrice 30, and Inspire 3 batteries from 10% to 95%, depending on the battery, in roughly about 30 minutes. We have made a full review that you can find right here. We’ve been testing this thing for several weeks and quite frankly, it’s a beast. We’ve been able to power up a lot of different things using the battery bank, but check out the video for more information.
Drone Light Show at Sun ‘n Fun
Last up this week, the Sun ‘n Fun air show had an amazing surprise because they used drones for a light show along with the actual air show of the aircraft flying. The aircraft had pyrotechnics, they had full pyrotechnics on the side, and then two different displays on each end of the field using drones – a total of 500 drones.
The show was put on by Firefly Drone Shows, a company based in Michigan, and we were actually lucky enough to be behind the scenes on the second show on Saturday night. And let me tell you, what an amazing spectacle – 500 drones taking off right here in front of us. So we want to say a big thank you to Kyle for letting us kind of shadow and take some cool videos.
It’s been a long time, I’ve been going to air shows pretty much most of my life, even as a kid, and I have never seen anything like it. The pyrotechnics, the show itself – we saw it last year with just the pyrotechnics and the actual aircraft with fireworks on the aircraft. Now adding that complexity of the Drone Light Show, you should have seen the reaction from people that were around us. We saw it on Wednesday night and then we saw it again on Saturday from the field, but on Wednesday, we were around a whole lot of people from the terrace of our hotel, and the reaction was absolutely amazing.
I’m pretty sure this is a first, to be done in the middle of an air show with pyrotechnics, lights, and everything. I hope we see a lot more of these. I’m really excited that we get to see this technology mixing with the world of aviation, and yeah, that was quite the show.
And that’s it, that’s all we have. Have a great weekend and we will see you on Monday. We’re back in town, back with the live at 4:00 p.m. Pacific, and we’ll see you then.
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