Steel towers, some towering over 100 meters tall, stand steadfast in remote wilderness, mountainous terrain, or desert regions. Their reinforced structures and high-voltage power cables can evoke a sense of awe and trepidation.
Each year, inspection teams conduct multiple visits to these towers, undertaking powerline inspections. These tasks require climbing to the top of the towers to meticulously examine structural components, conductors, insulators, and lightning arresters. Manual inspections are not only inefficient but also come with inherent risks from working at great heights and around high-voltage equipment.
In recent years, drones equipped with imaging and infrared temperature detection technology have begun to revolutionize inspection workflows. Operators can now monitor the performance of high voltage equipment remotely and in real-time.
Recently, DJI introduced two new models designed for public safety, inspections, mapping, and other industrial applications: the Matrice 4E and Matrice 4T.
The Matrice 4E focuses on high-precision mapping, featuring autonomous close-range imaging capabilities. It comes equipped with the D-RTK 3 multifunctional station, which acts as a signal relay even in remote mountainous areas with disrupted signals, ensuring uninterrupted communication in complex terrains. Its upgraded positioning system advances accuracy from meter-level to centimeter-level.
Meanwhile, the Matrice 4T positions itself as a versatile solution for various industries, offering enhanced intelligence, adaptability to complex environments, and improved safety features. The 4T can maintain constant speed while orbiting or following a designated target, measuring distances and areas in real time.
Beyond hardware upgrades, DJI has embedded advanced computing power into these drones, enabling detection and tracking capabilities.
Packed with new technologies
Since drones began being deployed several years ago in industries for inspections and mapping, among other areas, human-augmented drone operations have gradually become commonplace in some regions. The Matrice 4E and Matrice 4T build on DJI’s extensive technological expertise, offering advancements in imaging and flight performance.
Industrial inspection scenarios, such as powerline or bridge assessments, demand clear visibility of minute components like bolts from a distance. This requires exceptional zoom capabilities and image stabilization. To meet these demands, the Matrice 4 series introduces trifocal capabilities. Its new telephoto lens with 112x hybrid zoom allows users to read license plates from a distance of 250 meters. With integrated rangefinders, operators can also measure distances in real time, doubling the observational range of the previous generation.
To ensure stability and clarity in adverse conditions, DJI has incorporated features like optical image stabilization, electronic image stabilization (EIS), defogging, and heated lenses. Nighttime operations and low-light performance have also been enhanced, enabling stable flights under urban lighting conditions.
Even in GPS-degraded environments, the Matrice 4 series can utilize fusion positioning technology, switching to vision-based navigation to complete missions reliably.
Cui Yu, an industry solutions engineer at DJI, said that customers across various sectors have already been leveraging DJI drones before the launch of these models. Beyond delivering sharp imaging, DJI’s self-developed DJI Terra reconstruction software, introduced in 2019, integrates drone technology with photogrammetry. This enables users to accurately measure dimensions and locations of structures such as buildings.
However, advanced imaging alone does not address operational complexities. For example, during powerline inspections, drones must fly close to transmission towers—structures surrounded by powerful electromagnetic fields. This not only risks interference with drone systems but also potential damage to tower components. Such tasks require exceptional spatial awareness and precise control over altitude and positioning, skills that can take pilots one to two years to master.
To address these challenges, DJI’s Matrice 4 series incorporates high-precision positioning technology, enabling autonomous operations. By presetting flight routes, pilots can deploy drones to execute missions automatically, freeing them to focus on task planning and inspection quality.
To further optimize labor and adapt to regular operations, DJI has introduced the FlightHub 2 remote management platform for the Matrice 4 series. This platform enables operators to monitor ongoing missions in real time and upload captured materials directly to a centralized cloud platform for streamlined processing and management, minimizing risks of data loss or duplication.
With hardware ensuring stable and clear imaging and software enhancing post-processing efficiency, the Matrice 4E and Matrice 4T are designed to integrate seamlessly into industrial workflows. Moving forward, tailoring solutions to meet specific use cases and addressing granular challenges will likely become the primary focus.
Integration with AI
As artificial intelligence continues to transform industrial applications, DJI has combined its hardware with AI models to enhance computational power while offering third-party integration capabilities.
Prior to the release of the Matrice 4E and 4T, DJI had already introduced the Manifold series of onboard computers. These modules underpin the detection and recognition capabilities of the new drone models, enabling them to identify and track objects such as people, vehicles, and vessels from a distance. The drones can track up to 128 targets simultaneously in live video feeds and detect up to 1,000 objects in still images.
DJI also supports third-party model integration to meet industry-specific needs. For instance, in construction scenarios, custom models can detect worker compliance with safety protocols, such as helmet usage. In older residential buildings, drones equipped with thermal imaging can identify structural issues such as water seepage or hollow walls by analyzing temperature variations. Suspect areas are flagged for further inspection.
Developers can access DJI’s online resources to download training files, upload trained models, and verify performance on the platform before deployment.
While both the Matrice 4E and Matrice 4T feature AI capabilities, their applications differ. The Matrice 4E focuses on mapping scenarios with close-proximity imaging, offering streamlined workflows for tasks like architectural surveys. With onboard autonomous modeling, the 4E eliminates the need for manual flight planning and post-processing, significantly reducing operational complexity.
Additionally, DJI has introduced accessories such as loudspeakers and searchlights. The loudspeaker supports real-time broadcasting up to 300 meters away, further enhancing the drones’ utility in diverse scenarios.
Engineered for industrial applications, the Matrice 4 series combines proprietary AI models, software platforms, and robust hardware features. Following its launch, a distribution model will be implemented to validate its performance in real-world use cases.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Hu Yiting for 36Kr.