DJI drones can fly over crowds, if they pack a parachute
Most of the time, commercial and personal drones are not allowed to fly over groups of people. For safety, obviously. Indemnis’ drone parachute changes that. The company’s product was just certified to allow operators to legally fly drones over small groups of people. This is the first time such a device received the certification.
According to Indemnis, the Nexus system straps onto DJI drones and acts as a safety measure in case the drone fails. The system is equipped with sensors that can determine if any anomalies are occurring during a flight. If something goes wrong, the parachute is deployed by a ballistic launcher. The company claims the chute comes out at a speed of 90 miles per hour, taking just 30 milliseconds. It comes out of a tube that inflates to keep the parachute lines away from the drone’s body and propellers.
In order to get approved for use over the head of passersby, the Nexus parachute had to pass 45 functionality tests that examine the system’s use in five different failure scenarios. Indemnis’ system is available starting today for the DJI Inspire 2. The company plans to offer a version of the parachute for the Matrice 200 and 600 series of drones before the end of 2019. The former suffered from an issue last year that caused the drones to unexpectedly fall out of the sky.
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