Robotics

Drones grounded after falling out the sky

1st November 2018
Alex Lynn
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Drones are being used more and more frequently every day, and soon it seems that seeing one flying overhead will not be such a novelty anymore. However, due to a fault which can cause drones in the DJI Matrice 200 series to drop out of the sky, UK police have grounded some of their drones. 

On Friday 26th October, the United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) released a safety notice, which stated: “A small number of incidents have been recently reported where the aircraft has suffered a complete loss of power during flight, despite indications that there was sufficient battery time still remaining. In each case, this resulted in the aircraft falling directly to the ground.” 

As a result of this, the CAA has prohibited flying the drones within 50m of any person, vessel, vehicle or structure, or within 150m of large congregations of people, until the fault is fixed. 

The fault is effecting drones in the DJI Matrice 200 series, the company has responded to the fault, claiming that it is ‘working to address this matter urgently’ and resolve the fault in their drones. The UK police have reportedly grounded their DJI Matrice 200 series drones until the fault is fixed.

According to Andrew McQuillan, Crowded Space Drones: “There's thousands of these specific models around the world being used by police and emergency services who favour its ability to operate in windy and rainy conditions.”

Drones are frequently used around the world by the government and emergency services in pursuit of counter-terrorism and public safety, as well as being deployed at large events, such as festivals, to better monitor the safety of everyone. As the use of drones is primarily to help assist in keeping the public safe, having drones which risk crashing out of the air is counterproductive. 

Neither the manufacturer nor the police have received any reports of people or property being hurt from the falling drones, which is particularly lucky as a six kilogramme drone, larger than those typically commercially available, plummeting towards you from a significant height, certainly has the potential to cause damage. 

The Matrice 200 drones are aimed at professional and commercial use, such as search and rescue and site monitoring, Tom Morrod, Analyst at IHS Markit, told the BBC that this fault could effect the whole sector, he commented: “It's potentially going to slow down a lot of experimentation, the opportunity to establish new business cases. Having them not fall out of the sky… is clearly important."

DJI is currently advising anyone with one of the effected drones to update their firmware and all batteries until they have a clearer idea of what is causing and how to fix the fault.

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