Mavic 2 Enterprise (DUAL) Released!

[Drone Master]

Bill found it!

DJI Makes Thermal Imaging Portable with Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual - UASweekly.com

 

[NetDep]

Can’t wait for official release, pricing & more info!!!! Great find & video - thank you!!!! [emoji106][emoji106]

 

[io390]

Officially released:

Mavic 2 Enterprise – Built to Empower. Destined to Serve.

 

[io390]

The price point for this is great but as I mentioned in other threads, the Lepton sensor will be a huge letdown for SAR use. For an example of image quality, look up video from a Flir One Pro or a Flir Duo (not the pro).

It's the only sensor in this price range though and this will be great for fire use (radiometric) and also surveying.

 

[Drone Master]

Just a follow up by Bill.

 

[Snowstorm]

The Lepton sensor will only be 160x120, meaning it would be hard to spot a human size heat signature more than say 120ft away. Even the FLIR official FAQ said that the FLIR One Pro which uses the same sensor would only be able to see a human up to 130ft away in ideal conditions.

So this is good for inspection type work, or looking for seriously hot spots such as a fire. However, it is going to be of very limited use in terms of searches.

 

[Snowstorm]

Also I assume that the DUO will have no optical zoom.

 

[Keule]

 

[Snowstorm]

Ok, just as I suspect. Max usable distance to see someone is about 100ft away using thermal. So good for checking temp of something you already know exist, but not good for trying to find something using thermal that you don’t already know about.

Inspection only, not search

 

[Drone Master]

Ok, just as I suspect. Max usable distance to see someone is about 100ft away using thermal. So good for checking temp of something you already know exist, but not good for trying to find something using thermal that you don’t already know about.

Inspection only, not search

Well actually, this version of the M2ED was created to back up the M200 and XT2.
DJI is slick when it comes to marketing their product.
A bit of a disappointment that there is a separate product that is not compatible with the original M2E. No camera swap this time between the two. Strictly a proprietary unit.
DJI marketing at it’s best! Expect your Local taxes to go up supporting your local municipalities to use this aircraft.

 

[Dougcjohn]

Was wondering the same... maybe too early to know, but was wondering if able to purchase the small M2 Dual Gimbal separately and use on M2 or M2E. DJI also states Pro / Zoom not User swappable but that can easily be performed with the Pro & Zoom gimbals beginning to appear on market. If Dual Thermo uses the same physical mount & ribbon connection, hopefully the FW would recognize.

I've played with a Yuneec ET 160 resolution thermo and it was basically useless other than close Inspection work. Examining XT's 330 vs 640 clearly shows the 640 resolution is required for any distance... both XT & XT2.

A previous post above indicated Temp Reading, to verify this unit is not radiometric... correct? On the video when mentioning Temps, it was more the standard "zone" temp, not radiometric accuracy.

Unlike the XT2, the videos don't show the M2E Dual can overlay or show both RGB & IR images on screen simultaneously. Did I miss something or is that correct for this dual setup?

Having MP, MA, I1, I2, M210, M600P & RoninMX, I was pondering adding the M2 to Inventory with both Pro / Zoom gimbals (1 bird, 2 gimbals) and possible sell MA & MP... and then the M2E was released... read & watched reviews, now the M2E Dual. For the use of the M2, I'm still not convinced there's any gain over the standard M2 for "my" intended scope of work using either Pro or Zoom gimbals. The most appealing component of the M2E are the self heating batteries which I'm pretty confident will work with all the M2 series... the M2E's OcuSync2 is nice but not sure a big benefit over the M2's electronics improvement over the MA & MP.

I was waiting on the M2E Dual to see if IR would be 320 resolution and dual overlay. I personally feel it fell short of expectations.

 

[io390]

We're still continuing with development of our Boson 320 M2 solution for this reason.

It is aimed squarely at public safety agencies (UK only) and is set up for this specific task. Controls are minimal and simple, plus we've added physical buttons and switches to the RC so the essential camera functions (record, photo capture, zoom, thermal/visible light toggle, colour palettes, thermal gain) can be controlled very easily without having to move your hands from the sticks. This also means you don't have to touch the app in flight, so you can fly with gloves on. Useful for a 20 minute mission in winter.

Only problem is it will be more expensive than the M2E dual, but that's due to the Boson sensor which is about £1300 Vs £250 for a Lepton.

The Boson 320 with 6.3mm lens will easily detect a person at 400 metres, a Lepton will not. The idea is that for searching/monitoring people from distance the Boson solution will be far more useful and, most importantly, far quicker to detect a human heat signature when searching a large area.

Because the Lepton relies on a visible light camera for MSX enhancement, the night time performance is poor. The visible light camera obviously won't detect much at night.

 

[Dougcjohn]

We're still continuing with development of our Boson 320 M2 solution for this reason.

It is aimed squarely at public safety agencies (UK only) and is set up for this specific task. Controls are minimal and simple, plus we've added physical buttons and switches to the RC so the essential camera functions (record, photo capture, zoom, thermal/visible light toggle, colour palettes, thermal gain) can be controlled very easily without having to move your hands from the sticks. This also means you don't have to touch the app in flight, so you can fly with gloves on. Useful for a 20 minute mission in winter.

Only problem is it will be more expensive than the M2E dual, but that's due to the Boson sensor which is about £1300 Vs £250 for a Lepton.

The Boson 320 with 6.3mm lens will easily detect a person at 400 metres, a Lepton will not. The idea is that for searching/monitoring people from distance the Boson solution will be far more useful and, most importantly, far quicker to detect a human heat signature when searching a large area.

Because the Lepton relies on a visible light camera for MSX enhancement, the night time performance is poor. The visible light camera obviously won't detect much at night.

Sounds interesting... you're doing this on the M2, is it separate transmission & monitor or incorporated with M2 FC?
Any photos you care to share in the development stage? The Boson also offers a 640 and multiple lens options. Any reason you went with 320 & 6.3mm ?

 

[io390]

Was wondering the same... maybe too early to know, but was wondering if able to purchase the small M2 Dual Gimbal separately and use on M2 or M2E. DJI also states Pro / Zoom not User swappable but that can easily be performed with the Pro & Zoom gimbals beginning to appear on market. If Dual Thermo uses the same physical mount & ribbon connection, hopefully the FW would recognize.

I've played with a Yuneec ET 160 resolution thermo and it was basically useless other than close Inspection work. Examining XT's 330 vs 640 clearly shows the 640 resolution is required for any distance... both XT & XT2.

A previous post above indicated Temp Reading, to verify this unit is not radiometric... correct? On the video when mentioning Temps, it was more the standard "zone" temp, not radiometric accuracy.

Unlike the XT2, the videos don't show the M2E Dual can overlay or show both RGB & IR images on screen simultaneously. Did I miss something or is that correct for this dual setup?

Having MP, MA, I1, I2, M210, M600P & RoninMX, I was pondering adding the M2 to Inventory with both Pro / Zoom gimbals (1 bird, 2 gimbals) and possible sell MA & MP... and then the M2E was released... read & watched reviews, now the M2E Dual. For the use of the M2, I'm still not convinced there's any gain over the standard M2 for "my" intended scope of work using either Pro or Zoom gimbals. The most appealing component of the M2E are the self heating batteries which I'm pretty confident will work with all the M2 series... the M2E's OcuSync2 is nice but not sure a big benefit over the M2's electronics improvement over the MA & MP.

I was waiting on the M2E Dual to see if IR would be 320 resolution and dual overlay. I personally feel it fell short of expectations.

I can answer a couple of these but not many.

This is radiometric, yes. It uses the Flir Lepton 3.5. Worth having a look here for more info: Lepton® 3.5

Someone from DJI stated on Twitter that you cannot swap the standard Enterprise and Dual cameras. This would imply that the core board on the Dual is different. It really depends on how DJI integrated it.

The Allwinner A3 SoC used on the M2 will only support input from one MIPI camera, so perhaps they added something else to deal with the thermal data. The data from a Lepton, being 160x120 pixels at 8.7fps is miniscule compared to the data from the 4k visual light sensor. The MIPI protocol does have some way of inserting extra data, so they could be running the thermal data through there and then extracting it in the A3. I need to take one apart to be sure, but we'll do that sooner or later.

OR, they could be doing what DJI always does, and just repackage an existing Flir product. Given the specs and performance, I believe they've based the system on the Flir One Pro, so it's quite likely that all the thermal features are taken care of inside the camera, before it goes to the aircraft. That would mean that partial thermal/visible on the live feed (as per XT2) is not supported just yet. I haven't seen any pictures or info to state that it is.

Whilst DJI's decision to use a Boson is possibly good for us, it is a shame overall that they went this route. Had they crammed a Boson 320 in there then this would be fantastic, but would take many sales from the M2**/XT2, as you say.

Finally yes, the Enterprise/standard M2 batteries are interchangeable.

 

[io390]

Sounds interesting... you're doing this on the M2, is it separate transmission & monitor or incorporated with M2 FC?
Any photos you care to share in the development stage? The Boson also offers a 640 and multiple lens options. Any reason you went with 320 & 6.3mm ?

I'll post some photos later on - there is a photo of our very early prototype on my thread here:

Mavic 2 Flir - An Analysis

We've since updated the visible light camera and it uses the original M2Z camera, so it has full quality and optical zoom etc...

The Boson 640 will fit onto an M2P gimbal but you can't fit anything else on there if you do that. It's also incredibly expensive (I think the last quote was about £3500 for a Boson 640!) so the 320 seemed like the sweet spot here. Obviously just having a thermal camera with no visible light cam would be limiting. We chose 6.3mm because the FOV is about right for SAR use. We can of course use a 4.3 or 9.1 if anyone requested it since they're the same size.

It is fully integrated with the drone and the thermal video shows through the DJI Go app, yes. Essentially we are switching between video feeds to the core board.

 

[NJInfrared]

If you like images that look like a bunch of maggots and slow video, it's yours. The camera specs don't meet any industry standards for roof, solar and other. Take to Mt. Krumpet and dump it-The Grinch

 

[Dougcjohn]

I'll post some photos later on - there is a photo of our very early prototype on my thread here:

Mavic 2 Flir - An Analysis

We've since updated the visible light camera and it uses the original M2Z camera, so it has full quality and optical zoom etc...

The Boson 640 will fit onto an M2P gimbal but you can't fit anything else on there if you do that. It's also incredibly expensive (I think the last quote was about £3500 for a Boson 640!) so the 320 seemed like the sweet spot here. Obviously just having a thermal camera with no visible light cam would be limiting. We chose 6.3mm because the FOV is about right for SAR use. We can of course use a 4.3 or 9.1 if anyone requested it since they're the same size.

It is fully integrated with the drone and the thermal video shows through the DJI Go app, yes. Essentially we are switching between video feeds to the core board.

Very nice... looked at your prototype setup. That looks like a nice setup. How’s it work in the gimbal; Range of movement and balance for the little gimbal? The 320 would defiantly be a huge improvement over the 160. It would more accurately meet the M2E Dual statement of purpose as a close range partner to the M210 XT indicated above.

You started on the M2, does current design require the M2E or include the M2? Like many, I’d probably be using the M2.

Your project looks more inviting than the M2E Dual. And, it should be able to swap to Pro 1” or standard Zoom... correct? Where are you on project and market time?
Have it added enough weight to significantly effect flight time? At this stage, any projected price point?

 

[io390]

Very nice... looked at your prototype setup. That looks like a nice setup. How’s it work in the gimbal; Range of movement and balance for the little gimbal? The 320 would defiantly be a huge improvement over the 160. It would more accurately meet the M2E Dual statement of purpose as a close range partner to the M210 XT indicated above.

You started on the M2, does current design require the M2E or include the M2? Like many, I’d probably be using the M2.

Your project looks more inviting than the M2E Dual. And, it should be able to swap to Pro 1” or standard Zoom... correct? Where are you on project and market time?
Have it added enough weight to significantly effect flight time? At this stage, any projected price point?

At present we are only developing for the M2, and it's based on the Zoom. Using the Zoom gimbal (Pro would be better as the gimbal is bigger, but we want to use the Zoom camera). Assuming the camera on the standard M2E is the same as the M2Z, then yes it will work on that, however the processing boards are currently sitting in a dome on top of the drone where the M2E accessories mount.

Aiming to have a demonstrable prototype before the end of Jan, and price is currently looking around 4000GBP plus taxes, so it is a fair jump in price. That's down to the Boson sensor being significantly more expensive than the Lepton unfortunately.

 

[Dougcjohn]

At present we are only developing for the M2, and it's based on the Zoom. Using the Zoom gimbal (Pro would be better as the gimbal is bigger, but we want to use the Zoom camera). Assuming the camera on the standard M2E is the same as the M2Z, then yes it will work on that, however the processing boards are currently sitting in a dome on top of the drone where the M2E accessories mount.

Aiming to have a demonstrable prototype before the end of Jan, and price is currently looking around 4000GBP plus taxes, so it is a fair jump in price. That's down to the Boson sensor being significantly more expensive than the Lepton unfortunately.

My Bad, I got lost, I thought you indicated a shift to M2E after it was released. Great to hear on the M2, I think you"ll have a larger market... but I do feel the 2 AC will have interchange gimbels... maybe not the Dual but the Pro & Zoom.

That's about $5k USD, had hoped to hear less but it's about where realistically expected too. It is a nice setup on a small platform; although for my limited usage, I'd need strong justification to use the M2 with IR when a used XT-R 640 isn't much higher and offers greater detail & distance... it's on a larger AC and that may be a negative at times, positive at others.

That is a nice compact package, would like to see the final product... might not be able to pass it up. Great idea & design!

 

[kufalas]

Hello! So, is official DJI going to release a Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual with a better thermal camera than this small sh*tty lepton that has no resolution?