DJI Drones and the Coronavirus 2020
Police
In the recent week, government agencies such as the Police, have resorted to using drones to communicate and warn citizens about the danger of the Coronavirus. The epidemic has been ongoing since the end of 2019 and has just recently jumped up in confirmed cases and deaths. In order to further spread the awareness, the Mavic 2 Enterprise has been used by the Chinese police and health organisations to warn people, particularity the elderly, to wear face masks and to seek refuge inside.
Western Australian Police Force have used the Matrice 200 RTK combined with a loudspeaker and a LED matrix lighting system to broadcast messages to the public regarding the Coronavirus to remind the public about social distancing in public areas. Other police forces around the nation are trialling thermal imaging drones to detect peoples temperatures to check if they may have a high temperature.
Using a drone in this fashion is safer, faster and helps prevent the spread of diseases and misinformation. Many of these rural villages are not aware of how serious the situation is were the elderly continue to wander outside and exercise outside on public equipment.
The Mavic 2 Enterprise Zoom has a transmission range of 8km, contains airsense (this helps drone pilots become aware of aircraft flying around the area) and has a flight time of 31 minutes. There are three modular accessories that can go on the top of the drone, where the one in question is the loud speaker. The pilot simply records a message on the application and the drone will relay that message onto the speaker. The speaker is 10W and has a playing sound of up to 100 dB and an intensity range of the 100 dB is 1m.
DJI
Furthermore, DJI has pledged $1.5 million dollars and a fleet of DJI Agras drones to help fight the Coronavirus in China. DJI engineers have adapted the Agras drones, their agricultural line, to spray disinfectant in areas that may be affected. Comparing this to your traditional methods of spraying on the ground, this is much more effective as the drone can fly autonomously on a pre-programmed path. Another benefit of using drones means that number of workers that will be exposed to the virus will be less. Safer for everyone.
Their testing team developed different blends of the ethyl alcohol-based disinfectant to find the right concentration to be sprayed from the air. They have already sprayed somehwere around 3 million square meter in ShenZhen and are in contact with 1,000 counties in China to adopt the spraying method. These areas include factories, residential areas, hospitals and waste treatments plants. They claim this method is around 50 times faster than the traditional methods of spraying.
They fitted their drones out with loudspeakers, like the Mavic 2 Enterprise, to help communicate precautions. There are more reports of Doctors using thermal imaging drones to check on peoples temperatures to ensure they do not have the fever and can measure a large group of people from a safe distance.
Public
It's not just the public and DJI who are helping out with drones. There are public operators who are using their drones to deliver face masks to those in rural villages and places where they are out of masks. This eliminates the need for human to human contact and is much more versatile than say a robot on the ground. The Chinese drone community are coming together to create solutions with their drones and it really shows the true strength of humanity in this tough time.