Following last-minute leaks, DJI announced on Thursday the release of its latest flagship enterprise drone with upgrades across the board to make flying the Matrice 350 RTK better for any use case you have.
Matrice 350 brings the drone in line with smaller brother
Last year we saw the release of DJI’s M30 drone, a midpoint between the Mavic Enterprise series of drones and the full-scale M300. It offered some upgrades from its bigger brother, like an IP54 weather rating, the RC Plus standard, and an upgraded transmission system. Now, many of those systems will come with the M350 RTK drone.
DJI M350 RTK Biggest upgrades
- IP55 weather rating
- O3 enterprise transmission (1080p video at 20 km)
- DJI RC Plus standard
- Night vision FPV cameras
DJI has settled on the new DJI RC Plus as the new controller for all of its large enterprise and professional series drones. Last month, we saw DJI release the Inspire 3, the closest thing we’ll see to a consumer drone supporting the sizable controller. The RC Plus boasts a seven-inch touch screen, an IP54 weather rating, a hot-swappable battery, and six customizable macro buttons.
After holding it at DJI’s Airworks conference last year, it has to be one of the better-feeling controllers to hold. I’m not sure if that’s because it’s so big and fantastic looking that you feel awesome by just holding it or if it just really is that well-designed of a controller. Either way, it’s a heavy one, so using a neck strap to give your arms a break will be needed.
Other improvements
Did I forget to mention night vision FPV cameras? Yeah, it has that too. FPV cameras allow the ability to see what is in front of the M350 RTK while it is flying while using the secondary (or tertiary) payload camera to focus on the action. Now the camera is upgraded for better performance in low-light situations, as emergency operations don’t only happen during cloudless perfect days while the sun is up. As a result, the M350 is now prepared for better operations at all hours of the day and in all weather conditions.
Some other creature comforts coming to the M350 are sensors in the arms that can detect whether or not they are correctly locked. While we mere mortals with our Mavics or Minis would have a pretty hard time even taking off without the legs properly unfolded, the M300 could lead to safety concerns or malfunctions during a flight if the arms weren’t locked properly. Now the M350 will be able to detect whether or not all four arms are correctly deployed and locked in place before lifting off.
One last upgrade for the M350 is the batteries. Still giving the drone a fantastic 55-minute flight time, the new TB65 battery supports as many as 400 cycles. The new SB65 battery storage case follows this new battery as an all-in-one solution for charging and storing the drone’s batteries. It offers options to keep batteries charged at 50% for storage, 90% to be ready to fly, or 100% just before use. All of this can be managed in the Pilot 2 app on the DJI RC Plus.
Finally, one of the features that made the M300 great for enterprise and public safety work was its support for multiple payloads. The M350 will continue to support up to three payloads, two below and one above, during flight as long as the total weight is below the 2.7 kg payload capacity.
The M350 will also keep backward compatible with M300 payloads, which is unsurprising as this isn’t a complete series upgrade. So if you already have invested in the M300 system, there won’t be too much of a difference when switching to the M350. And, of course, the M350 supports RTK positioning, a must-have for any enterprise product.
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