One of the most common uses for drone technology is monitoring crowds.
Whether it is for entertainment or emergency personnel use, unmanned aerial vehicles are real game changers when it comes to providing a cheap, efficient way to get surveillance from the air.
The only problem with all of this is that it has to be done in as safe a way as possible – and that’s often easier said than done when you’re talking about flying a drone above large crowds of people.
Because if it falls, the likelihood that someone will get hurt is pretty high.
But not if Alaskan-based company Indemnis has anything to say about it.
Their Nexus parachute system was just approved for use with the DJI Inspire 2 drone in flights over large crowds according to PetaPixel.
How it works is that, if the DJI Inspire 2 loses power or somehow malfunctions and begins to fall, the parachute deploys automatically. Representing the fruits of a collaboration started in 2017, the Nexus parachute system was put through five different failure scenarios across “45 functionality tests” conducted at a Federal Aviation Administration in New York according to PetaPixel.
After successfully passing all of its tests, the Indemnis parachute was the first in the world to ever be awarded the designation “ASTM International F3322-18 Standard Specification For Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS).”
Discussing the partnership, DJI VP Brendan Schulman said: “DJI is pleased to have contributed to the development of technologies and standards that will be used to support advanced, higher-risk operations…As the FAA works to open more of America’s skies to beneficial drone uses, the certification of the Nexus system on DJI’s platform is a significant step toward making flight over people and crowds routine, expanding the scope of vital applications such as search and rescue, newsgathering, and public safety.”