A new drone feature, the Zenmuse XT will allow users to control the camera in flight. It can shoot infrared video or still photos and wirelessly transmit the live images in the dark, through smoke, haze or brush. It will be installed in the new, off-the-shelf drones.
The world's largest drone maker is DJI, a China-based company that currently has about 70 percent of the world drone market. DJI teamed up with FLIR Systems, a Wilsonville, Ore.-based thermal and infrared imaging company to come up with the see-in-the-dark drone.
At a recent news conference, the companies showed a video in which several people walking in a pitch black field at night looked like brightly lit light bulbs moving across the rough field. "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.
While DJI and other companies sell camera-equipped drones, before this, anyone who wanted see-in-the-dark capability had to cobble their own rig together, Snow said.
The new drones will first be of interest to fire departments and search-and-rescue groups.
"They are looking for something they can take out of the box and fly it over a fire." Snow says, "they don't want to fiddle with it.
For FLIR, drones are the perfect way to position its sensors in three-dimensional space, says Jeff Frank, the company's senior vice president of strategy. He says:
"Through the drone, I can see things the human eye doesn't see. It's like a sixth sense."
