The DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual is an oddball in DJI’s line-up. The title itself is a mouthful, and despite the Mavic 2 part of the name it’s not designed for your typical hobbyist. As far as I’ve seen this drone has gone a little under the radar regarding news, but it actually represents a solid investment for a powerful drone with professional thermal imaging capabilities.
Just in case you’re not versed in typical thermal imaging camera costs (like me) the enterprise thermal camera would not be considered a premium tier like the Zenmuse XT2 for example, but it’s capabilities, and overall hardware design makes it something to be considered in the same breath.
DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual - What's in the box:
- Aircraft x 1, Remote Controller x 1, Battery Charger x 1, Power Cable x 1, Propeller (pair) x 3, Spare Control Stick (pair), Communication Cable (USB 3.0 Type-C) x 1, USB Adapter x 1, Extended Port Cover x 1, Speaker x 1, Spotlight x 1, Beacon x 1, Enterprise Case x 1, RC Cable (Lightning connector) x 1, RC Cable (Micro USB) x 1, RC Cable (USB Type-C) x 1, Manuals
Gimmick or a professional thermal solution?
This is unquestionably a professional solution. Yes, there are thermal cameras that can outperform M210 with an XT2 camera for example, but this particular equipment comes at the cost of deployment speed, manoeuvrability and cost. The Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual (M2ED) is equipped with one of FLIR’s smallest thermal cameras and in the shell of a Mavic 2 helps to make sure that it can be transported easily and deployed exceptionally quickly. When considering the scenarios in which drone thermal cameras are used like firefighting and Search and Rescue time is of the essence and while higher-end machines might take time to prepare the Mavic 2 Dual can already be in the air scanning for people to rescue.
How to use Thermal Camera on the M2ED
The M2ED comes with a huge range of uses and features to customise your thermal camera. In the standard view, you have the option for only InfraRed, MSX or Visible. MSX is an overlay for outlines (this can be adjusted). The picture above is a perfect example of how MSX combines both Visible and Thermal to help improve visual accuracy. Typically, thermal images just look like blurry hot to cold blobs, but the MSX shows how MSX can help provide more information about the picture like doors windows and other structural features.
The M2ED main thermal screen also allows you to use the spot meter function that shows any the temperature of any point on the screen. The ‘spot’ is 5x5 pixels which means the further zoomed out you are on a situation the less accurate this measure is as it takes in too much data from the surrounding area.
Another useful feature you can use in conjunction with Spot sensor or Zone sensor is the Temp Alert, this triggers if a particular area is over a certain temperature threshold. When triggered the device will make an audible alert for you.
Thermal Colour Palette options on the M2ED
The M2ED has multiple thermal colour palette options to help convey visual temperature information very quickly. The modes included are as follows:
Each palette is good for a different scenario. Hotspot is good as it helps isolate thermal signatures from the background. The rainbow palette shows the broadest spectrum of colours helping to identify all different temperatures. Grey just shows hotter features towards the lighter end of the spectrum and colder features towards the darker end. Hot metal is similar to Iron Bow on other cameras and is a fairly popular option. It renders hotter objects closer to white while colder object goes down the spectrum all the way to black. Finally, you have Cold Spot which unsurprisingly works the opposite to hot spot in that it highlights the coldest objects in the frame.
Another thermal feature on this is Isotherm is a feature that isolates specific thermal ranges from the rest of the image. DJI has two pre-set options, search people, search fire and the option to set up a completely custom range. The search people temperature range is 26° Celsius – 40° Celsius. The search fire range is 65° Celsius – 400° Celsius.
