Chinese Police Officer uses his drone in cases

Drone Lover

Born in 1985, Wang Yuyao is a police officer in Tangshan Police Station. He has been a loyal fan of model plane since Junior High.

Zhu Yue, senior officer of Tangshan Police Station, said Wang Yuyao has used his drone to assist daily works of the police station, including investigation, security control, supervision and emergent response.

Wang was the only normal police officer invited to the National Police UAV Forum of 2015, while other 300 delegates are scientists, experts and technicians from institutes and enterprises.

On month later in October, 2015, Wang and two of his colleagues went to the First Contest of Police UAV Application on behalf of Jiangning Police Bureau. They won the second prize in landing/taking off.

He was invited again to the National Police UAV Forum of 2016, and gave a speech on the practice of UAV in small police stations.

There are now three drones in Tangshan Police Station, according to Wang. One was his DIY, the other two drones were bought by the police station. With different sizes, three drones are used for different tasks.

Finding Missing Boy

Mr. Liu called Tangshan Police station at 10 a.m., Dec 27^th, 2015, saying his 9-year-old son went missing. The station sent out over 20 police officer to search the missing kid immediately.

A neighbor reported that he saw Mr. Liu’s son walked into a Mountain nearby with a male adult. Tuan Mountain, which was not tall, was covered dense trees.

The police station sent out a drone to search, and soon found a man. After investigation, the man, Wang, said he saw the young boy walked towards Qinglinyan Village. Then Police and Mr. Liu found out the ‘missing’ boy was at his friend’s home.

Useful for Various Tasks

Fire control became critical during Tomb-sweeping Festival for Tangshan Police Station. Wang said: “Drones are much more efficient in patrolling around mountains. It used to cost 60 policeman a whole day to patrol the mountains, but now the drone can finish the task in one hour.”

It is also applied to monitor flood and provide warning during flood season. Via the real-time video transmission, the police station could respond in targeted ways. The data sent back by drones would be shared to other relevant government departments for further rescue/response plans.

Drones are also used to prevent illegal logging in remote mountainous areas. Previously, it was very difficult for officers to get close to the logging scenes and capture evident pictures. With drones, it has become much easier to locate criminals take pictures as evidence, which would help Police’s arresting action.

Wang also suggested that drones could help to drop buoy to drowning person with precision, especially when the person is far away from banks.

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How are drones used for graffiti?

Drones can be used in many fields. Carlo Ratti Associati is planning to paint empty urban surfaces across the world by drones. That is, drones can also be used to draw graffiti. The studio has developed a system called ‘paint by drone’ that can draw on building surfaces, turning any blank surface into an artistic space for urban data visualization.

The drones equipped with sensors are programmed to draw content submitted digitally via an app, while a central management system regulates their operations in real time. In this way, the drones can create artistic works on the empty walls for us.

The studio plans to paint the graffiti first in Berlin and Turin in fall 2017. The collaborative graffiti projects will allow either an artist to do an initial drawing on the canvas to be colored in by users where each person can pick a favorite spot for the drone to paint.

And you can also use the mobile app to draw your own designs. It can be seen that graffiti is now catching up with the scientific development trend.

A protective net will be placed on the scaffolding’s cover so that people can use the drones to paint freely and safely.

There are still more possibilities to be unlocked for drones.

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5 Mistakes Most New Pilots Make

What’s the first thing to do when you finally have your DJI Mavic at hand?

No, not fly. It’s studying user manual.

User manual serves as the best teacher of all new pilots. Every question about the drone can be answered. For example, what should you do with these two little sticks?

But when you finally finish reading the user manual and hope for a thrilling flight, you probably are frustrated by the result of what you took.

You search the Internet and watch amazing aerial videos shot by well-known aerial photographer, but still can’t understand why such an easy move doesn’t work well in your videos.

Except those are not easy moves.

Below are the top 5 mistakes that beginners mostly make:

TOP5

Fail to fly consistently

▼

Mostly happen when: following moving objects

Consequence：Lose the target or make the entire video go waste

Reason： Don’t have a sense of how much force should be made to control the sticks

Solution:

1 Use your thumbs along with your pointing fingers to control the sticks, instead of using thumbs alone

2 Use ActiveTrack to follow your target

Using thumbs alone to control sticks can be difficult for beginners

Use two fingers for accurate control

With DJI ActiveTrack, why bother manual control?

TOP4

Fail to know the limit of gimbal pitch

▼

Mostly happens when： Flying over a target and adjust the camera from forwards to downwards

Consequence：Shaking footages

Reason:Not familiar enough to simultaneously control the flight and camera pitch

Solutions：

1 Use your thumbs and index fingers to control the joysticks, the middle fingers roll the dials gently.

2 Please pay attention to the roll instruction line on the left side of the video feedback or the shutter button, gradually stop rolling the dial when the movement of the roll axis is closed to the limit.

When camera pitch is about to reach the ceiling, the white dot above turns red.

TOP3

Fail to make a decent circling

▼

Mostly happens when：manually circles around a target

Consequence：footage is ruined by bumpy flight

Reason：Cannot coordinate the left stick with the right one

Solutions：

1 Practice makes perfect. And remember, never push the sticks too hard.

2 Use Circle mode in DJI Go.

That’s how bumpy videos are recorded

Push the left stick gently when turning the drone

DJI GO Circle Mode

TOP2

No entering & exiting frame

▼

Mostly happens when：Shooting moving target

Consequence：No entering and exiting frames in the video

Reason：Lack of awareness

A good video should have a beginning and ending to let viewers know where it begins and ends

Solutions：Be aware

Entering & exiting frame

TOP1

This is the TOP 1 mistake that almost every beginners will make, which is:

A sudden turning during flight

▼

Mostly happens when：Anytime could happen

Consequence：ruins the perfect long shot

Reason：unknown

Solutions：keep your hand away from the left stick during flight

Just flight forward. It doesn’t hurt.

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Will China Dominate UAV Technology?

Chinese consumer drone companies have been pace-setters in recent years, taking up more than 70% of global market share. Chinese military UAVs are also making significant progress. Swarm intelligence is the key to military artificial intelligence. In a recent flight experiment, the quantity of swarm fixed-wing UAV has reached 67, while the record was kept by US Navy at 50. This marks a significant breakthrough of China. It also means China has entered the first tier of UAV technology.

China has developed leading UAV technology, which is more advanced than that of US in a few fields. However, if China is to remain its juicy market share in consumer drones, the transition from functional drones to intelligent drones is necessary.

Portable drone Mavic is designed and produced by Chinese drone company DJI. When folded, it is the size of a water bottle. While the flight time of Mavic reached 27 minutes. GoPro released its Karma drone around the same time, which soon was recalled due to quality issues. Without intelligent features like obstacle sensing and automatic tracking, it is hardly a smart drone. Yang Jincai, President of Shenzhen UAV Industry Association said: “Everyday there is a new drone here in Shenzhen, the capital of drone.”

Shenzhen produces 70% consumer drones in the world. Giant like DJI and ZeroTech, or UAV start-ups, all rely on the mature electronic industry chain and government’s “Made in China 2025” strategy. The strategy is also beneficial to military drones. CH-5, China’s military UAV, has longer flight time and bigger bomb load than US Predator UAV.

Just in Aviation Industry Corporation of China, there are five crucial UAV lines including Long, Ying, Yiing, Bing and unmanned helicopter. In the 2016 Zhuhai Airshow, this company displayed their latest MagLev aircraft, which took an appearance of UFO in Sci-fi movies.

President Yang JIncai commented: “The manufacture of hardware and other industries are faced with the fourth industrial revolution.” Chinese corporations should make best of their advantages in software engineering and manufacture of intelligent hardware.

UAVs are the phosphor of “Made in China 2025”, requiring integration of more technologies including AI, VR and AR. Multiple cooperation is also needed to further the industry development.

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“A Worldwide “Industrial Revolution in the Sky” Ushered in by Drones

The drones have been acting as the eyes and ears of army. In recent years, with various advantages such as small size, cheap price and easy operation, drones are not only used in army now, but also in traditional aerial photography, logistics, industrial exploration and agricultural management as well as some other new fields.

Photo from the Internet

Earlier in July 2016, the Britain cops used a drone in finding the escaped lynx. According to Daily Mail, Devon and Cornwall Police are set to launch the first 24-hour drone unit in the UK. They’ll be used to help officers with investigations, by searching for missing people and taking photographs of crime scenes, for instance. Have you ever been caught in a situation where you failed to find the commodity in a supermarket? A drone may solve this problem. According to Fortune, a large-scale supermarket is going to get drone patent for in-store delivery. The idea is to free customers from having to walk across its super-sized emporiums to find what they want and from having to wait while employees return from far-away storerooms. If you order a cup of coffee in the supermarket, the drone will also delivery it for you.

With drones, the office workers no longer have to worry about their pets at home. An American business machine company plans to use drone as the “nurse” and “trainer” for pets. This drone will be equipped with a microphone to detect pets’ cry or bark and a temperature sensor to detect whether the pets have a fever. The drone can also track the pets’ activity area to confirm whether the pets have entered restricted area. While playing with the pet, the drone can also give “verbal praise” or drop a piece of food as a reward. When the drone detects that the pets need to answer a call of nature, it will work cooperatively with other intelligent smart home equipment to let the pets go out.

As the application fields extend, drones’ intelligent operation capacity has been improved. It is said that the Russian drone pilots may soon get a revolutionary virtual reality helmet to pilot unmanned aircraft and get an HD view of terrain and enemy targets. In 2016, a Norwegian laboratory showed their idiodynamic drone that they have been developing. With just a blink of your eyes, the drone can turn the pilot’s brainwave into flight signals.

In rencent years, the drone industry is growing fast in the world. People’s recognition and demand for drones are increasing. With more and more powerful functions, the drones will definitely usher in a worldwide “industrial revolution in the sky”.

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DJI Offers Rewards to Informants Reporting Trouble-makers Disturbing Normal Flights in Chengdu

Recently, drones have been detected in the No-fly Zone near Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport for several times, disturbing normal take-off and landing of civil aviation flights. On April 14^th, 17^th, 18^th and 21^st 2017, over 100 flights were forced to land or return to the airport and over 10,000 passengers were stranded at the airport. The Chengdu Police has placed this case on file and started and will investigate and carry out punishments on relevant people involved in the case.

The malignant behaviors mentioned above not only threatened aviation safety and public safety, but also greatly deteriorated people’s impression on civil drones. As the leader of consumer drones, DJI denounced this kind of behavior and will work together with relevant supervision departments and the public to punish them.

Thus, DJI decided to offer rewards to informants who can provide useful clues to help find out the trouble-makers.

See the details as below:

Reward Period: April 25^th 2017-December 31^st 2017

Reward Target: During the reward period, those informants who can provide crucial clues and help track down the criminals and those who have direct contributions to solving the case.

Reward Amount: Maximum amount up to 1 million CNY

Report Approach: Contact Chengdu Police

DJI is obligatory to safeguard airspace safety and guarantee healthy development of drone industry. DJI expects to popularize and advocate drone safety awareness in society in order to lay foundation for civil drones’ healthy development in China.

DJI

April 25^th 2017

0755-36356042

xiansuo@dji.com

【Appendix】

According to news report, the details are as follows:

On April 14th (2:05pm), drones were detected in the No-fly Zone, 30 kilometers away in the north of the Airstrip West of Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport. Three passenger planes were forced to detour and the flights on the ground was delayed for 5 minutes;

On April 17th, drones were detected in the No-fly Zone, 18 kilometers (Pidu District) away in the north of the Airstrip West of Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport. Several flights within this area were forced to hover in the air and 12 flights inbound for Chengdu were forced to land at other airports;

On April 18th (6:26pm and 6:38pm), drones were detected in the No-fly Zones 3.7 kilometers (Shuangliu District) and 14.8 kilometers (Chongzhou District) away successively in the north of the Airstrip West of Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport. 22 flights were forced to land at other airports and 23 outbound flights were delayed.

Sichuan Provincial Public Security Bureau reported again on April 21st that 4 private drones were detected in Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport. 58 flights were forced to land at other airports, 4 flights were forced to return to home and over 10,000 passengers were stranded in the airport.

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DJI Phantom 4 Advanced Compromises Obstacle Avoidance for…

From Netease Drone

While the DJI Phantom 4’s production is to be dropped from the production line by the end of this month, DJI released the Phantom 4 Advanced with similar configuration but much cheaper price. Well, is the Phantom 4 Advanced an update or simplified version of Phantom 4?

Twin Brother of Phantom 4

Phantom 4 Advanced continues the appearance of Phantom 4 series. It is hard to tell the specific model when looking at it in the front. But when you look at it from the side, it is similar to Phantom 4 without the left and right infrared sensors. It is said that the remote controller of Phantom 4 Advanced only supports 2.4GHz instead of the 2.4GHz & 5.8GHz dual bands in Phantom 4 Pro. The Phantom 4 Advanced is like a “twin brother” of Phantom 4.

Similar Configuration to Phantom 4 Pro

Yet, Phantom 4 Advanced also feature similar configuration to Phantom 4 Pro: equipped with the same camera of Phantom 4 Pro, it can record professional 4K video. A mechanical shutter is used to eliminate rolling shutter distortion which can occur when taking images of fast moving subjects or when flying at high speed. And the remote controller is simplified without compromise in image transmission and control range.

Besides, Phantom 4 Advanced also feature a wide range of intelligent flight options: Draw, TapFly, ActiveTrack, Gesture Mode, etc. allowing the users more freedom in aerial photography.
 

Draw

Many customers think that the Phantom 4 Pro is remarkable but the price is too high compared to the Phantom 4. The Obstacle Avoidance can only be used in Beginner Mode and Tripod Mode. Without the right, left and rearward vision sensors, and with a simplified remote controller, the Phantom 4 Advanced is 1000 CNY cheaper than the Phantom 4 Pro. This must be DJI’s response to the market feedback. According to Mr. Paul Xu, Director of DJI Enterprise Solutions, General Manager of Unmanned Aerial System Training Center, the Phantom 4 Advanced features the best aerial camera, which indicates that DJI will focus on this function to cut down the cost. Undoubtedly, the Phantom 4 Advanced will affect the sales of Phantom 4 Pro.

 

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