Skydio R1

Drones have pretty much been everywhere now and it’s no more that fancy, cool and new gadget, although there have still been a whole lot of innovation around it but the air around it has settled down as drones become common to people, whether it’s cinematography or just casual drone flying. However there’s one company which might bring back that extra step towards a whole new level of innovation.

The Skydio R1

Skydio brings out a Autonomous Drone which detects the targeted individual or even any object and follows it wherever it moves through its sensors and camera while using Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision. This means you no longer need to control the drone while you want to record yourself out, the drone does that all for you. You still ofcourse can control it with the Skydio provided app from your phone.

The set up is easy aswell, you simply launch the Drone from a flat surface or even from your hands and open the app to tap on the person or object you want to use as a subject or you yourself and the drone will film you wherever you move. It offers 5 different modes, Follow, Lead, Side, Orbit and Tripod modes. The Follow, Lead and Side mode films the movement of the object (the targeted person) from the back, front and side views respectively. The Orbit mode films it while rotating (360 degree of rotation) around it and on the other hand the Tripod mode is a bit different, it locks the drone at a certain location and films the movement of the object from the fixed location. While you can set between different height and angle for the view. It allows you to share small clips of the recording from the app itself after the landing and to access the full clips you need to connect the drone through USB to your computer.

It shoots at 4k at 30 fps and 1080p at 30 & 60 fps. It comes with 2 batteries in the box each lasting upto 16 minutes, it can reach a top speed of 25 mph and has a video storage upto 64 GB while costing $2499.

The movement and the recording of the camera is just so impressive as the drone can move around even in a dense and busy areas like a forest around the branches of the tress which even a expert drone pilot might face difficulties. All this through the Nvidia Jetson TX1 Computer along with 13 cameras and different sensors to create a map of the surrounding and then planning a path in accordance to the movement of the targeted object and also helping avoid obstructions. The software then combines the data to perform and film a lovely a footage from the drone. The Computer Vision and Deep Learning helps it keep getting better with usage making the Skydio R1 a great autonomous gadget to have.

The drone when compared to the likes of the DJI Inspire 2 which is a complete beast for professional aerial cinematography doesn’t have a 5K mode, only lasts for about 16 minutes whereas the Inspire 2 lasts around 30 mins and offers only one third the top speed of the DJI counterpart and ofcourse way weaker from a professional film making point of view as Inspire 2 gives tons of other features for filmmakers and editors. But one place where the R1 comes out better is in the Autonomy part, the Computer Vision from Skydio is what they guarantee can even beat the ones from a company as huge as DJI.

The thing I love about the R1, is it’s ease of usage. You need not be a professional drone pilot nor a great cinematographer, all you need is the Skydio app, then just tap on the object to be captured, choose a mode of capture and you’re all set, the rest is satisfactorily done by the drone. I absolutely love when a technology like this is implemented in a manner when you don’t need to be a professional and is so amazing how it works and performs. I’m a great admirer of Artificial Intelligence when it is applied in such an amazing manner and not just a mere prototype allowing the technology to reach the consumers faster helping move towards the future quicker and efficient.

Ofcourse the R1 is no where a perfect drone, it still has to catch-up to get a better battery, better video quality, faster speed and a compact and portable enough size. However it is tough to put everything including a supercomputer, cameras and sensors for a autonomy feature this good is a challenging task but as time progresses and as the startup company grows bigger could be possible.

“This isn’t a small step up in tracking and following technology, this is a quantum leap.”

Casey Neistat

The one thing I’m really impressed about Skydio is it is already giving a dominant company like DJI a call that in a dominant market that there is a potential competitor coming up which even as a small firm has done some impressive work already and is ready to improve. So it’s more about the technology and the implementation to that technology that really caught my attention then the actually drone itself. The goal of the company is not to bring a high end and a highly professional drone, it’s more to bring about a affordable yet a drone which can be used professionally even without expert guidance and not actually be a competitor to the DJI high end drones. It wants to have its own dominance in a autonomous market of drones. As of now the drone does cost a huge amount ($2499) which probably is not what the company wants but since being at the very early stage their cost of production would be higher but will keep getting lower and so would their market price.

Skydio is a company founded by 2 MIT graduates and now the company is based in California having caught the eyes of many investors already including Kevin Durant (NBA Player). Skydio as a company has a lot to develop into and give the world some great Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision based technology.

I’m really looking forward to Skydio as a company, their Drones and the Computer Vision & AI technology rooted at the base of the drone into other areas of technology aswell which we still can have a lot of discussion about . What do you guys think about the same, drop you views below in the comments.

#Skydio

PEACE ✌️