A number of photos and a video of what looks to be a dock version of the DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise Thermal without the folding arms have made their way onto Twitter via well-known leaker Igor Bogdanov. This leak means DJI is working on a special version of its Mavic drone, potentially to be used in a dock.
Update: The name is now believed to be Matrice 3D, find out more here.
What we can tell from the leaks
Mavic 3 Enterprise Thermal camera module
Looking at the video and photos, we can tell for sure that visually the camera module is identical to that of the one found on the DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise Thermal released earlier this year. This tells us that the new mysterious drone is enterprise focused, featuring an RGB sensor, thermal sensor, and a zoom sensor.
Permanent RTK module
The Mavic 3 Enterprise series of drones features an accessory swapping port towards the front on the top. This allows for a speaker, spotlight, and RTK module to be attached. Looking at a photo showing the top of the unreleased drone shows a bulge towards the rear of the top of its shell.
The shape is similar to the current RTK module, maybe a little smaller, but to us, it looks like this could be a built-in RTK module. In the same photo, the drone appears to have an expansion port towards the front, but it isn’t clear at this stage.
No folding arms
The first thing we noticed when looking at this new drone is removal of the famous Mavic folding arms. The folding arms being removed suggest this version isn’t going to be packed up, stored, and travelled with like the regular Mavic 3’s. Why wouldn’t you want to fold the arms? If you aren’t going to be touching the drone at all, that is.
A larger body
With the lack of folding arms comes a slightly larger footprint than the current Mavic 3s, as well as a larger body of the drone. This could mean a larger battery has been packed into it, giving it a longer flight time, with one person suggesting potentially hitting the one-hour mark. This body shape would also make it easier for the drone to get power from the dock.
DJI Mavic 3 Thermal dock edition
Reading all the points above and adding confirmation from the leaker that the drone is for a DJI Dock, dubbed the DJI Dock SE, makes it almost certain that the Chinese drone maker is working on a Mavic 3 Enterprise Thermal for the DJI Dock. This would complement DJI’s M30 dock nicely and give the company an additional docked drone option, with the potential for the Mavic 3 Multispectral to be docked soon.
