Skydio團(tuán)隊(duì)非常關(guān)注無(wú)人機(jī)的自主性，它可以在跟蹤目標(biāo)和躲避障礙物的同時(shí)自行飛行。沒(méi)有自動(dòng)機(jī)場(chǎng)支持的飛機(jī)要靠人起飛降落，帶回家充電。對(duì)于面向消費(fèi)者應(yīng)用領(lǐng)域來(lái)說(shuō)，這不是什么大事。但對(duì)于工業(yè)界來(lái)說(shuō)，因?yàn)槿斯ぐ嘿F，而且?guī)缀蹩偸敲τ谧銎渌虑椋枰詣?dòng)或在最少的人參與的情況下完成任務(wù)。Skydio 2無(wú)人機(jī)依托美式郵箱的自動(dòng)機(jī)場(chǎng)，伸縮機(jī)庫(kù)能夠防風(fēng)防雨，可裝在手提箱中運(yùn)輸，在幾分鐘內(nèi)即可完成安裝，你可以在幾乎任何地方設(shè)置它，并讓你的無(wú)人機(jī)可以長(zhǎng)期獨(dú)立完成任務(wù)。
飛行軟件使無(wú)人機(jī)能夠使用其六個(gè)機(jī)載攝像頭建立一個(gè)360度的環(huán)境地圖，躲避障礙物，拍攝周圍環(huán)境，然后下來(lái)充電。無(wú)人機(jī)會(huì)降落在一個(gè)漏斗形小著陸平臺(tái)上，機(jī)場(chǎng)內(nèi)的電動(dòng)手臂將無(wú)人機(jī)和著陸平臺(tái)拉入機(jī)庫(kù)進(jìn)行充電。無(wú)人機(jī)將需要大約一個(gè)小時(shí)的充電時(shí)間，然后它就可以再次進(jìn)行23分鐘的飛行。
Skydio的自動(dòng)機(jī)場(chǎng)是他們與DroneDeploy的第一個(gè)行業(yè)合作伙伴關(guān)系的一個(gè)組成部分，DroneDeploy是一個(gè)無(wú)人機(jī)地圖平臺(tái)。舉個(gè)例子：你可以讓一架skydio 2機(jī)場(chǎng)專用無(wú)人駕駛飛機(jī)駐留在一個(gè)建筑工地，然后它會(huì)在你需要的時(shí)候在工地上飛來(lái)飛去，并把一張工程進(jìn)展的地圖發(fā)給你。由于無(wú)人機(jī)總是在現(xiàn)場(chǎng)，隨時(shí)待命，不需要專業(yè)飛手進(jìn)行值守作業(yè)，它可以近乎實(shí)時(shí)地按需提供數(shù)據(jù)，作業(yè)數(shù)據(jù)的后處理也是自動(dòng)化的，沒(méi)有人參與意味著收集數(shù)據(jù)的成本足夠低。美國(guó)聯(lián)邦航空管理局（faa）可能不允許這樣做。“根據(jù)現(xiàn)行條例，必須放棄超視距（bvlos）。我們認(rèn)為，小型、輕型、安全的機(jī)場(chǎng)無(wú)人機(jī)具有先進(jìn)的導(dǎo)航和防撞能力，是連續(xù)作業(yè)的最佳選擇。我們的總體看法是，我們有責(zé)任確保該系統(tǒng)滿足所有相關(guān)的安全和后勤問(wèn)題，并與監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)合作，負(fù)責(zé)任地推廣這項(xiàng)技術(shù)。”首席執(zhí)行官亞當(dāng)•布萊說(shuō)。
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The word “autonomy” in the context of drones (or really any other robot) can mean a whole bunch of different things. Skydio’s newest drone is probably the most autonomous drone that we’ve ever seen, in the sense that it can fly itself while tracking subjects and avoiding obstacles. But as soon as the Skydio 2 lands, it’s completely helpless, dependent on a human to pick it up, pack it into a case, and take it back home to recharge.
For consumer applications, this is not a big deal. But for industry, a big part of the appeal of autonomy is being able to deliver results with a minimum of human involvement, since humans are expensive and almost always busy doing other things.Today, Skydio is announcing the Skydio 2 Dock, a (mostly) self-contained home base that a Skydio 2 drone can snuggle up inside to relax and recharge in between autonomous missions, meaning that you can set it up almost anywhere and get true long-term full autonomy from your drone.Obviously, this is something that you can only do with the level of autonomy that you get with Skydio’s drone, because there’s no human pilot in the loop. From launch to landing on that alarmingly small platform, the drone can fly itself, although a remote human can step in if they want to at any point. once the drone is safely back in its carry-on-size weatherproof box, the drone spends about an hour recharging (you’ll need to plug the box in for this), and then it’s ready to go again for a 23-minute flight. Conceivably you could have the drone in the air every hour and a half collecting data for you.Skydio’s dock is an integral part of their first industry partnership with DroneDeploy, a mapping platform for drones. One potential application is that you could have a Skydio 2 drone living inside of a dock on a construction site, and then it’ll fly around the site as often as you need it to and send you back a map of how much things have progressed. Since the drone is always on-site and ready to go and doesn’t need to coordinate around a human operator, it can give you data on-demand in near-real time, or even after the fact: Tell it to fly every day, and then if you want to know what happened a week ago, the data will be there—no human involvement means that the cost to collect data is low enough that there’s no reason not to just do it pretty much constantly.Well, there’s one reason not to just do it all the time, which is that in the United States it’s probably not allowed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). CEO Adam Bry said that:“Under current regulations a Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver would be required. We think that a small, light, safe drone with advanced navigation and collision avoidance is an excellent candidate for persistent autonomous operation. Our general view is that it’s our responsibility to establish that the system satisfies all relevant safety and logistical concerns, and work with regulators to roll this technology out responsibly.”
The FAA does grant a fair number of waivers like these, and as Bry says, Skydio has a platform that they can (hopefully) show to be safe and reliable enough that the FAA will be cool with it. But this is yet another case where regulation is falling behind technology, and it means that you can’t just start using this system for your business without having to jump through some government hoops first. This is the problem with being a company that’s so far ahead of the curve, I guess—sometimes you have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up.
Skydio also sees its dock system as being valuable for first responders, where real-time data from a drone can potentially save lives. Instead of someone on-scene having to devote their attention to drone management. In these cases, having a person intermittently in the loop to request specific views might be a more typical use case, but not having to worry about takeoff or landing or flying would make things much more efficient: you can just ask for the data you want and the drone will provide it, and it won’t bother you about anything else.
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