Drones (aerial)
Multirotor inspection drone
A quadcopter or hexacopter that hovers close to a structure and looks at it with zoom, thermal or laser-ranging cameras. The workhorse for towers, roofs, bridges, search and rescue.
Good at
Hovering still next to a thing and photographing it in detail; getting eyes where ladders and cranes are slow or risky.
Watch out for
Flight time is measured in tens of minutes; wind, rain, GPS shadow and airspace rules decide many flight days.
Specs that matter for this type
- Weight
- Runtime / flight time
- Payload
- Top speed
- Range
- Max wind resistance
- Ingress protection (IP)
- Operating temperature
- Sensors
Jobs it does
Usually the main robot for
- Thermal building envelope inspection
- Lost pet search by drone
- Elevator shaft inspection
- Dam & spillway inspection
- Rail track & catenary inspection
- Wind turbine blade inspection
- Cooling tower & stack inspection
- Livestock monitoring & herding
- Bird deterrence drones
- Solar farm thermal inspection
- Power line inspection
- Wildlife surveys & anti-poaching
- Wildfire detection & monitoring
- Polar, glacier & volcano surveys
- Search and rescue
- Water rescue & lifeguard drones
Also used for
Models we've catalogued
How to read this. Specs come from each maker's own spec page or datasheet, with the link and the date we checked it. Blank means the maker doesn't publish it (or we haven't found it). Scores are a whirrwork assessment, not a lab test: we only score a model when independent trials or tests exist. Methodology.
| Model | Weight | Runtime / flight time | Payload | Top speed | Range | Max wind resistance | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DJI Matrice 350 RTK DJI | 6.47 kg | 55 min | – | 23 m/s | – | 12 m/s | Not enough evidence to rate |
| DJI Matrice 400 DJI | 9.74 kg | 53 min | 6 kg | 25 m/s | 40 km | 12 m/s | Not enough evidence to rate |
| DJI Matrice 4T DJI | 1.219 kg | 49 min | 0.2 kg | 21 m/s | 25 km | 12 m/s | Not enough evidence to rate |
| DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise (3E / 3T) DJI | 0.915 kg | 45 min | – | – | 15 km | 12 m/s | Not enough evidence to rate |
| Skydio X10 Skydio | – | 40 min | 0.385 kg | 20.1 m/s | – | 11.9 m/s | Not enough evidence to rate |
Also called: inspection drone, thermal drone, drone, rescue drone.