Parrot sensFly eBee X, Parrot ANAFI Work - DSLRPros Official Blog

I am Matt from Parrot business solutions. I head up the marketing across our Parrot and Sensfly brands, and today we’re launching two new drones.

We have a new fixed-wing drone, the eBee X, and a new small business drone called the Anafi Work.

Introducing the ANAFI Work

So we really saw a space in the market for a small medium-sized business tool that can be used across applications that’s super light, foldable, got 4k video, and can look straight up, and is also really a full package solution.

So compared to the consumer Anafi, with this package you get four batteries, so your total flight time is going to be an hour and 40 minutes, so 25 minutes per battery.

We have a full one-year subscription to Pix4D processing software built-in so you can create the 3d models out of that data at the end, and a ruggedized case that’s more work tough for job sites.

So altogether for $1099, we think this is a very competitive and really high quality little product for getting eyes on a problem, so getting those aerial insights really quickly and easily.

Flight Performance

So surprisingly for such a small drone, the wind resistance of this is up to around 30 miles an hour.

So most standard kind of weather conditions, this is going to fly and capture really stable data.

Controller and Software

So the control mechanism for the Anafi Work, this is an app called Free Flight that works on your smartphone and that slots into this controller that is also a fairly ruggedized, heavy heavy duty kind of controller.

And then the Pix4D software comes in at the other end. When you have your images, you’re gonna use that to stitch them together and to create your 3D models that you can measure, work out volume, surfaces, and so on.

Introducing the eBee X

Sure, so we’re at Sensfly, that’s also part of Parrot business solutions. We have a 10-year track record of producing fixed-wing drones mainly for mapping applications.

So within the survey world, construction, mining, anywhere where we’re creating terrain models, the new one, the eBee X, really takes all those ten years of experience and a lot of customer feedback from the last 18 months and adds in everything we thought was really necessary for future work.

Improved Flight Time and Covera

How this is different from the previous eBee’s is, efficiency wise, we’ve really increased the flight times for the coverage of the drone.

This can fly up to 90 minutes, and if you’re flying 400 feet, that’s going to allow you to map up to around 1,200 acres in one flight.

Modular Camera Options

Secondly, we’ve increased the modularity and the multi-purpose nature of the drone.

So we have five different camera options. We have two RGB, we have a dual thermal and RGB, multispectral.

We really have a camera for every type of project that anyone in the geospatial world might want to do.

Survey Accuracy and Landing Improvements

We also have high accuracy for the GPS.

So for a surveyor who really needs like one, one and a half inch accuracy from their maps, they’ve got our built-in.

And lastly, I would say this, with the ultra strong new under skin we have and with what we call steep landing technology, we’re using a third of the space for the landing as we did before.

So really it’s much more suited to really work every kind of site, whether it’s very rocky on the floor or it’s a complex restricted site.

This bird’s going to be able to tackle that.

New Camera Systems for the eBee X

So with the eBee X launch, when we talk about the cameras, we have three new camera models that are completely exclusive to Sensfly and really increase the applications possible with this.

SODA 3D Camera

So this one here, we have the SODA 3d camera, and what that does is that takes three shots to every pass.

It takes one nadir top-down shot and it takes two oblique shots.

So it’s constantly moving as the aircraft’s in the air, and what that does is it gives you side shots of vertical structures, like if you’re urban mapping or if you’re doing cliffs or coastlines.

And that means the maps and the 3d models and the point cloud you get at the end will be much higher quality of the 3d reconstruction.

Aeria X Camera

So secondly, we also have a new high-end RGB camera, so really perfect for surveyors who want really high accuracy and a lot of detail.

That’s called the Sensfly Aeria X, and that’s an APS-C sensor.

So it’s roughly equivalent to a DSLR camera but in a very small form factor that can still do those long flight times in the eBee.

Dual Camera Rig

And last but certainly not least, we have the dual camera rig.

So this basically comprises the SODA RGB camera and a high-resolution thermal camera.

And then through our software and our sister company with Pix4D, we create thermal maps out of that, so an RGB orthomosaic map which has a thermal layer on top.

So for people, let’s say working in solar field inspection or in agriculture or doing drainage planning, water management, that’s really a perfect two-in-one solution.

Backward Compatibility

The eBee X is also backward compatible with existing Parrott sensors, and a good example is the Sequoia Plus, which is a multispectral.

So it’s a four band sensor for agriculture, so you’re going to use this to map your crops and to see which areas of development or crops are healthy or not.

And that’s been used already around the world by agronomists, by farmers, by researchers, and that’s immediately also compatible with the eBee X.

Closing

So that’s what we have that’s new at Parrot business solutions at Interdrone.

For more information, check out parrot.com or sensefly.com