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Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced – The ultimate compact thermal drone
29
Dec
Dec
Drones with a thermal cameras are no longer incredibly expensive or difficult to import. Nowadays even smaller business can easily buy a thermal drone when they find practical everyday use for it.
Built on the DJI Mavic 2’s frame, the Enterprise Advanced is the undisputed pinnacle of compact drones with thermal cameras in 2021 and continuing on to 2022. In this article we will show some examples of what you can do with a thermal drone and take a closer look at the DJI M2EA.
* As the larger Matrice 300 RTK drone + H20T camera are similar to the thermal imaging capabilities of the M2EA drone, some examples of data have been collected with the Matrice 300 RTK drone.
2. Solar parks often have faulty panels where some elements no longer work or sometimes even an entire series of panels is faulty. When an element or panel does not work, energy from the sun is converted into heat and the surface starts to heat up. Thermal drones can easily collect data from large solar parks to later analyze the images and find faults.
Sometime the park has good quality panels and wiring is in good shape, but there might still be problem with birds, vegetation or dust in the park and in cooperation with a standard RGB camera, such errors can also be quickly identified.
Below you can see dust on panels which is causing some of them to fail.
Below you can see a thermal image inverters taken with the M2EA with the drone in hand.
3. Thermal cameras are often used to observe animals, search for missing people, catch predatory fishing, etc. The picture below shows how all living beings emit heat and can be easily seen on a thermal image. Their tracks are also clearly visible on the snow. In the summertime, finding people and animals can be more difficult, because the ground if hot from sunlight and it’s difficult to distinguish a person from a stone or a tree trunk – drone operators experience really comes into play here.
The Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced is the only compact DJI drone that can only be purchased with a Smart Controller (SC). The SC comes with a built-in screen instead of connecting a standard telephone to the remote controller. Such a remote control has several advantages: the battery lasts longer, the battery does not die in the cold, the screen is brighter for flying in the sun, the app is more stable, the remote control is more comfortable to hold, phone calls won’t bother the operator, more customizable buttons and more.
What can you do with a flying thermal camera?
1. Find spots on buildings where heat or cold is squeezing out. The drone doesn’t have to be used only when flying. Once the flights have been completed, the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced can be folded together to take measurements indoors or in dangerous and tight places.
2. Solar parks often have faulty panels where some elements no longer work or sometimes even an entire series of panels is faulty. When an element or panel does not work, energy from the sun is converted into heat and the surface starts to heat up. Thermal drones can easily collect data from large solar parks to later analyze the images and find faults.
Sometime the park has good quality panels and wiring is in good shape, but there might still be problem with birds, vegetation or dust in the park and in cooperation with a standard RGB camera, such errors can also be quickly identified.
Below you can see dust on panels which is causing some of them to fail.
Below you can see a thermal image inverters taken with the M2EA with the drone in hand.
3. Thermal cameras are often used to observe animals, search for missing people, catch predatory fishing, etc. The picture below shows how all living beings emit heat and can be easily seen on a thermal image. Their tracks are also clearly visible on the snow. In the summertime, finding people and animals can be more difficult, because the ground if hot from sunlight and it’s difficult to distinguish a person from a stone or a tree trunk – drone operators experience really comes into play here.
What does the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced package contain?
The Mavic 2 Pro and Zoom are familiar to many and the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced comes in a similar body with a few upgrades. The Enterprise Advanced version features: a thermal camera, a 48MP and 32x zoom RGB (regular) camera, the ability to mount various extra modules, an auto-warming battery, a DJI Pilot app, a carrying case and the Smart Controller. NB! The RTK module is always sold separately and doesn’t come in the regular package.
The Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced is the only compact DJI drone that can only be purchased with a Smart Controller (SC). The SC comes with a built-in screen instead of connecting a standard telephone to the remote controller. Such a remote control has several advantages: the battery lasts longer, the battery does not die in the cold, the screen is brighter for flying in the sun, the app is more stable, the remote control is more comfortable to hold, phone calls won’t bother the operator, more customizable buttons and more.
In what conditions it’s best to use a thermal camera?
Poor conditions:
- With a thermal camera, it’s a little better to see through fog than with a regular camera, but thick fog in most conditions still reduces object detection distance to below 100m.
- If the object is behind something solid, then, contrary to popular belief, it is not possible to see through it with a thermal camera. Thermal cameras can’t even see through glass. It can’t see through walls, but it’s really good at helping to detect warm bodies through tree branches – see the moose in the RGB and Thermal image example shown earlier.
- When the sun warms the ground, rocks, tree trunks, asphalt, etc., it is difficult to distinguish smaller objects (people in the forest or animals) from the rest of the environment. This rule does not apply to solar panel monitoring.
- The warm engine of a car can be seen from a distance of 500m and people are seen from a distance of approximately 250 m. In most scenarios, the object will have to be approximately 20-50m away from the camera for best results. Some building or solar inspections even require the pilot to be only 2-3m away from the object.
- Sunrise is a good condition if the ground is still cold and the operator can also detect objects with the built-in RGB camera – this is useful in most scenarios except for solar inspections.
- At night, you can see very well with a thermal camera. At night, the ground is usually colder and smaller objects stand out because the temperature difference between a warm and a cold object is greater.
- Observing from a distance of less than 80 m generally gives the desired result and also finds smaller sources of heat – this does not apply to large and clearly distinguishable objects such as cars, groups of people, tents, campfires, etc.
Detailed specifications of the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced:
Drone:- Weight: 909 g
- Size: 322×242×84 mm (unfolded)
- Max speed: 72 km/h
- Max height: 500 m (limited by firmware)
- Working frequency: 2.400-2.4835 GHz and 5.725-5.850 GHz
- Internal memory: 24 GB + MicroSD memory card
- Real average range (accounting for returning with 5% battery left): In an open area: max 3,5 km Flying closely over a medium density forest: max 1 km In the city: max 1,5 km
- Flight distance with one battery: max 7km
- Resolution: 640×512 px
- Framerate: 30Hz
- Focal length: 9 mm (38 mm equivalent)
- Measurement range: -40 °C to 150 °C (High Gain) or -40 °C to 550 °C (Low Gain)
- Digital zoom: 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x
- Photo format: R-JPEG (location and height info)
- Video format: MP4
- Sensor: 1/2” CMOS, 48 Mpx
- Focal distance: 24 mm equivalent
- Digital zoom: max 32x
- Video resolution: 3840×2160@30fps and 1920×1080@30fps
- Photo format: JPEG (with height and location info)
- Video format: MP4
Where can I buy a DJI thermal drone?
We try to keep prices public at Droon.ee and you can see the pricing of all mentioned products here: If you are interested in a product or want more information on how to use a thermal drone in your field, write to us at info@droon.ee or call +372 5835 1267. If there are any important questions left unanswered in the article, write a question to silver@droon.ee and we will try to correct this error. Fly safe!
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