DroneDJ

Remember the DJI Mini 2? The little drone that made 4K aerial footage accessible to just about everyone has suddenly received some attention from DJI again, and if you’ve owned one, this is a pretty good excuse to feel nostalgic.

DJI appears to have a small surprise for Mini 3 Pro owners. The company has released a new firmware update for the compact drone, marking its first firmware refresh in more than two years.

DJI’s Mavic Air 2 and Air 2S may be several years old, but the company hasn’t forgotten about them. Both camera drones have received new firmware updates, marking a return to software maintenance after the Mavic Air 2’s last update in 2023 and the Air 2S’s in 2024.

London traffic can be more than a daily frustration when doctors are waiting on urgent test results. For children receiving care at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), getting medical samples to a laboratory faster could help clinicians make critical decisions sooner. That’s where drones are stepping in.

Drone mapping teams can now compare 10 site surveys, calculate cut-and-fill volumes, check accuracy against ground control points, and plan security camera placement directly in SkyeBrowse.

DJI is giving its popular Osmo Pocket 4 camera another round of refinements just as the holiday filming season approaches. The latest firmware update, v01.04.12.16, adds a more convenient tracking shortcut, improves color-conversion tools, and brings automatic media transfers to compatible devices.

Fortem Technologies and MBDA are expanding their partnership to bring autonomous counter-drone systems into air defense networks used by military and government customers across Europe and allied markets worldwide. The expanded agreement builds on a technical collaboration launched in 2024, when the companies integrated Fortem’s DroneHunter autonomous interceptor into MBDA’s Sky Warden counter-uncrewed aircraft systems (C-UAS) architecture.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has added previously submitted Department of War letters to the official records of its proceedings involving drone makers DJI and Autel Robotics. But there is an important catch: the agency says it did not rely on these letters when making the related additions to its Covered List.

Defense autonomy startup Rownd has secured a $10 million contract with the Department of War as it develops low-cost, autonomous drones designed for military operations. The company is also expanding its operations in Wisconsin and North Carolina, adding jobs and investing in drone research and development.

DroneShield has released a new software update designed to help counter-drone operators identify emerging threats earlier, reduce false alarms, and coordinate responses more precisely, without replacing equipment already in the field.

The global race to stop hostile drones is turning into big business for defense contractors. Raytheon, an RTX company, has secured $729 million in contracts to supply components of its counter-drone system to the US Army, Qatar, and Jordan, marking the first international sales of two key technologies used in the system.

Powerus is taking another step toward autonomous counter-drone defense with the introduction of its Guardian-3 interceptor, a new system designed to operate fully autonomously.

Before compact camera drones took over, the DJI Phantom was the aircraft that helped put serious aerial photography within reach of more people. And the Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 was one of the lineup’s standout models, pairing a 1-inch sensor with a mechanical shutter and 4K/60fps video.

GPS has become such a routine part of flying a drone that it’s easy to forget how vulnerable it can be. Jam a satellite signal, feed a receiver fake coordinates, and an autonomous aircraft or ground vehicle could suddenly struggle to figure out where it is. Elsight wants to change that with a new positioning technology designed to help uncrewed systems determine their location even when GPS is unavailable, jammed, or spoofed.

When police need to launch a drone during an emergency, every minute counts. But when that mission involves controlled airspace near an airport, getting the necessary FAA authorization can add another step before the drone takes off. Versaterm wants to make that process simpler.

Why settle for less when DJI’s most capable Mini drone bundle is now under $1,000? The Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo with RC 2 has hit $979, bringing flagship-level imaging, smart tracking, and three batteries into one tempting package. If you’ve been waiting for a proper price drop, this is the kind of deal that makes putting off an upgrade a little harder to justify.

Beam Global is making a bigger bet on the drone industry, signing a definitive agreement to acquire Norwegian drone technology company ScoutDI in a deal valued at approximately $24 million. The move could give Beam a stronger foothold in the US industrial and defense drone markets, with domestic manufacturing at the center of its plans.

A drone can have all the range and capability in the world, but eventually it needs to land, recharge and get back in the air. Three US companies are now trying to remove much of that downtime with a single mobile system designed to keep drones operating around the clock.

The FAA is putting more money into the technologies it believes could help drones safely become a bigger part of the US airspace. The agency has announced $12 million in awards for 19 companies and organizations working on drone research and testing projects. The funding comes through the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Program, which supports commercial entities working with FAA-designated UAS Test Sites.

Bali is taking a small but notable step toward drone-powered delivery, with a new pilot project testing whether food orders can be transported by autonomous aircraft between two locations on the popular Indonesian island.

There’s a point where a drone deal stops feeling like a serious electronics purchase and starts feeling like something you could accidentally add to your cart. The DJI Neo has reached that point.

Public safety agencies increasingly rely on drones for everything from fire response to search-and-rescue missions. But getting a drone into the air is only part of the challenge. Agencies also need to manage pilots and fleets, stay on top of airspace requirements, and make sure live video reaches the right people without delay.

Flying a mapping drone is relatively easy. Getting consistently accurate, usable survey data out of it is a different story. That gap is what DJI is trying to address with its new Advanced GEO Products Training Services programme, which has now reached Europe’s Benelux region.

XTEND AI Robotics has secured a new US patent for a technology that could make drone payloads far more than passive tools. The company announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office has granted US Utility Patent No. 12,743,960, covering an architecture in which a “smart payload” can send real-time instructions to the robotic platform carrying it.