Drone News Roundup: Cruise Control Available for All Mavic 3 Drones, Masterful FPV Freestyle Flying, and More!

This week we’re covering the news that cruise control is now available for all drones in the Mavic 3 series.

We’re also covering a fun FPV freestyle video showcasing flying from Alex Vanover, a drone made to wash windows, an edible drone made to save lives, and a new radiation sensor for drones from Teledyne FLIR.

Now let’s get to those links!

Cruise Control Now Available for All Mavic 3 Drones

When DJI released the Mavic 3 Classic last week, it came with a feature that other Mavic 3 drones didn’t have—cruise control. At the same time as the release, cruise control was made available for all other Mavic 3 drones via a firmware update (aircraft firmware update v01.00.0900), bringing this feature to the Mavic 3 Standard, Cine, and Enterprise. Cruise control allows you to set a constant flight speed for the drone, so you can focus on the footage you’re getting without worrying about the acceleration/deceleration of the drone. An additional benefit to going at a steady speed is that it reduces camera shake associated with manual speed control, allowing you to shoot smoother, more professional footage overall.

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Masterful FPV Freestyle Flying from Alex Vanover

Alex Vanover is one of the best FPV drone pilots in the world. In 2017 he won his first national championship with the Drone Racing League (DRL), and in 2019 he won the world championship. In addition to racing, his piloting has been featured in action movies like Michael Bay’s Ambulance, and he also does fast, impressive flying like the footage featured here in this mashup. Hope you enjoy it!

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Drones for Window Washing

Across most industries where drones are used, they’re typically seen as a tool for collecting information remotely—information like video footage, still images, or LiDAR data for 3D models. But the drones of the future will most likely be able not only to collect information, but also to do work. A good example of this is featured in the video above, which showcases a drone that’s been outfitted to do window washing. The drone is made by a company called Lucid Drone Technologies and it operates with a tether, allowing it to fly as long as needed to complete the job.

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Swiss Scientists Make Edible Drone for Lifesaving Scenarios

Credit: EPFL

Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland (the same city where indoor drone company Flyability is headquartered) recently unveiled an edible drone designed to save lives. The drone is made in part of rice cakes and gelatin and it can reportedly boost its payload of food from 30% to 50% of its mass. The drone is made for a single use—you fly to where a person is in desperate need of food, and then they eat it (well, part of it anyway).

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Teledyne FLIR Unveils Radiation Detecting Payload

Credit: Teledyne FLIR

Teledyne FLIR recently launched a new payload for drones that can detect, locate, measure, map, and identify radioactive sources from the air. The payload is called the R430 and it’s made to be carried by the company’s SkyRanger R70. As the drone industry matures, new types of sensing technology are being developed to support work in various industries—and the nuclear sector is one of the places that’s rapidly adopting drone technology. Last year, indoor drone company Flyability released a version of its drone equipped with a radiation sensor called the Elios 2 RAD made only for flying in confined spaces, and we’re sure to see more technologies released in the coming years to support remote radiation sensing, as well as sensing for other types of work.

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