AUTONOMOUS SKYDIO R1 DRONE – THE NEXT LEVEL
Skydio was founded by Adam Bry, Abe Bachrach, and Matt Donahoe, who met as grad students at MIT where they worked on a high-speed autonomous flight project before they started Project Wing at Google. They then moved on to found Skydio to create a fully autonomously flying drone, which is a big step up from obstacle avoidance, and it seems that they have succeeded.
Now, of course, most of us know obstacle-avoidance from DJI’s drones. Even though that system is quite good and has helped save many drones from hitting walls, trees, and whatnot, it is not quite autonomous flight.
DJI raised the bar recently with the introduction of FlightAutonomy 2.0 on the DJI Mavic Air. FlightAutonomy 2.0 uses the primary gimbal camera together with the forward, backward, and downward dual-vision sensors and downward infrared sensing system to create a 3D map of the drone’s surroundings. DJI calls this technology Advanced Pilot Assistance Systems (APAS). And to be honest, when we saw it in action on the Mavic Air during the DJI event we were impressed. When it was my turn to fly, the drone ‘sensed’ the obstacles and flew around and over them, while I kept flying forward in a straight line. Impressive for sure, but this is semi-autonomous flying at best.
SPECIFICATIONS
The Skydio R1 drone comes equipped with a 4K, 30fps gimbal stabilized camera (in addition to the 12 cameras used for autonomous flying) and can be flown straight from your smartphone. As an autonomously flying drone, there really is no need for a separate controller.
The R1 is made with aerospace materials, including lightweight aluminum and carbon fiber and it can be launched from any flat surface or from your hand. It has several different flying modes available: follow, lead, side, orbit and tripod. You can select these features on your phone. You can also tap to follow, adjust the angle of the shot or take full control and fly the drone yourself while keeping the obstacle avoidance activated.
PRICE AND AVAILABILITY
Today, the Redwood City, California-based company Skydio R1 launches the Frontier Edition of the R1 drone. You can order it online starting today and it will ship in the next few weeks. The drone comes with two batteries that provide 16 minutes of flight time each. It also has 64GB of internal storage for video footage. The price of the R1 drone is $2499.
