DJI’s Phantom 4 drone avoids obstacles, tracks humans

The Phantom drone is getting smarter.

The most intriguing feature about the new DJI Phantom 4 is certainly that DJI have now incorporated their obstacle avoidance alogrorhythms that they have been developing (LINK) over the last years.

DJI, the world’s largest drone manufacturer, has a new model. The goal, according to CEO Frank Wang, is to enable beginners to fly with confidence and for people to “collaborate creatively” with their quadcopters. It can detect an obstruction up to 15 meters in front of it, scanning 60 degrees horizontally and 30 degrees vertically.

And for those who like to race their drones (yes, drone racing is a sport!) the Phantom 4 has a Sport Mode that allow it to fly at 20m a second, or 45mph, so you can also film your subjects if they are travelling at very fast speeds. The enhancements make the Phantom 4 one of the most advanced consumer drones on the market, and further lower the barrier to flight for most consumers.

Among other new features the company has added is its Active Track technology.

ActiveTrack allows you to select an object with the press of your finger on a screen (such as an iPad) and the Phantom 4 will automatically follow that object and keep it perfectly in frame.

More intelligent sensors, better processing and less reliability on Global Positioning System signals make this drone safer, more ergonomic and easier to fly. With ActiveTrack, the P4 will simply follow whatever object has been tapped on the smartphone display. The Phantom 3 Professional tops out at 35.7 miles an hour, and has a maximum flight time of 23 minutes. It’s called the Phantom 4, it retails for $1,399 and it will be available exclusively for preorder through DJI’s website and Apple’s online store today.

Plus you can tap on a location in the video stream, and the drone will fly to it, avoiding objects as it does. You can tap another spot on the app and the Phantom 4 will smoothly transition towards that destination. It will, however, offer a new option for 120 fps slow motion recording at 1920×1080, The optics have also been improved to deliver better corner sharpness and less chromatic aberration, DJI said.

Footage promises to be steadier, too.

There are also a couple of new flight modes available, made possible by the sensors and the integrated 4K camera’s improved scene recognition.

A new battery and motor improvments and power management mean that the flight time has been increased to a respectable 28mins, though this isn’t quite as long as some people were hoping for.