Hello,
I am a new member here.
I am just looking for some buying advise for some new drone systems for my business.
My team and I are looking to switch to the Autel Evo 2 RTK systems for our company - we are cross shopping them with the DJI offering as well. I was wondering if anyone could provide some advise and answer some of the questions I had.
A little bit about our business:
We are doing three main activities:
1. Aerial inspections (mostly building roof inspections, envelope inspections, some solar, and other types of inspection work)
2. Photo and Video (mostly real estate, some commercial / advertisement work)
3. Mapping / Photogrammetry Missions (not a big part of our business currently but looking to grow this sector)
Our team:
We have expertise in GIS/Remote Sensing (we have a specialist on our team with a degree in geomatics and some experience processing / analyzing RPAS data for various mapping applications - this is an area we are looking to grow in)
We have quite a bit of experience with photography, videography / media services. We provide full real estate services, (3d Matterport scanning, videography, HDR photography, etc.), we also do commercials / advertisements / other videos for local businesses, some event photography/videography as well.
We do aerial inspections but are looking to provide more complex commercial roof and building envelope inspections - we have two people who come from a building inspection and architectural background helping us here.
Lastly, myself and one of our other team members come from an aviation background (commercial pilot and flight instructor) - so eventually we also hope to get into providing some aviation training down the line as well.
What we are looking to purchase:
1 x Autel Evo 2 Dual 640T RTK
1 or 2 x Autel Evo 2 Pro RTK (Looking to buy one very soon and then a second system a 1-2 months down the line)
1 or 2 x Autel Smart Controllers
- extra batteries, associated accessories, etc.
- RTK Base Station (we may hold off on this for a few months and use network RTK only for the time being)
Reasons we are looking at these Autel systems:
- The 640T seems to offer the capability we need for thermal inspections (primarily for building envelope and roofing inspections), the radiometric camera seems to have good resolution, etc.
- We need the RTK system for two reasons:
1. to improve position holding / navigation, near metal objects, etc. for inspection purposes (improving safety), this would mainly be for the 640T version
2. for precise / highly accurate geotagged image data - for mapping / photogrammetry missions (for the Pro version with the 6K camera 1" sensor)
- We need 1 or 2 drones with the 1" sensor to be able to provide decent quality video / photos for our real estate and commercial media clients - this would be replacing our current inspire with x5 camera, possibly a tiny bit of a downgrade in some ways, but we think the ease of use, longer battery life, and other benefits should out weigh any minor loss in quality compared with the inspire.
- Lastly, we are really excited with the idea of having one base drone system / platform with can fulfill all our needs, we are hoping that this commonality will ease operations with sharing of batteries and accessories across all the drones we operate, ease of training, etc.
Autel compared with the competition:
The Mavic 2 enterprise advanced and and mavic 2 pro are the main drones from DJI that we are comparing this with. From my understanding with the smart controller, etc. it does work out to be slightly cheaper to go with the DJI option than the Autel drones (at least here in Canada). However, from my understanding the Mavic 2 enterprise advanced's RTK system is not compatible with a base station and most importantly the rtk function does not appear to be of any use for mapping as it doesn't geotag the images. Also the Mavic 2 pro obviously does not have any RTK option. I was told by a DJI representative that we should look at the Phantom 4 Pro RTK for photogrammetry missions, but this adds quite a bit of extra costs, complexity, etc. especially since at the moment we do not have a lot of large scale or high paying mapping jobs (although we are looking to grow in this sector in the future). The obvious advantage with the Phantom 4 Pro RTK is the global shutter but I think this is an area we can comprise on at this stage, and still get reasonable quality results. Our team member who is qualified in GIS / Remote sensing is reaching out to her colleges for more information here, but I would love to hear what others that have experience with mapping missions think about this. We also briefly considered the M300 system - but the costs are just extremely high when you add all the payloads and we aren't sure that we will be able to take advantage of the extra capabilities at this stage - might be something we consider at a later stage.
This is just our thought process currently, but based on the background I have provided and the applications for which we need the drones for, please let me know if there are some other things that we should be considering.
The specific questions I have:
1. Would the photo and video quality from the 1" sensor be decent enough for commercial work (real estate, commercials, etc.)?
2. Which RTK base stations is the Evo 2 RTK compatible with? Does Autel produce their own RTK base station? if not, is it likely that there will be a Autel Base Station coming out? (Similar to the DJI RTK Base Station?)
3. DJI has Enterprise Care insurance (which is included with the purchase of their enterprise drones), does Autel offer this insurance (either complementary or at extra cost) for their RTK / Enterprise models? I see on their website that they have something available for the regular Evo 2 pro but the RTK / Dual 640T / Enterprise models do not seem to be mentioned. This is obviously a very major consideration for us, so if anyone could shed some light on this?
4. Would the Evo 2 Pro RTK be sufficient for doing smaller scale photogrammetry missions (considering it does not have a global shutter like the Phantom 4 Pro RTK)? If anyone has any professional mapping experience with the Evo 2 Pro, I would love to hear your opinion/ experiences...
5. I have read in another post on this forum that there is a Enterprise version of the Autel coming out that includes the Smart Controller and will be offered with both the Dual 640T and the Pro (6K 1") cameras. This appears to have an optional RTK module which can be purchased and attached. Does this RTK module link with the camera system and provide geotagged data (that we need for mapping), or is this similar to the DJI RTK system that's on the Mavic which only improves the position holding / navigational performance? Secondly, if the RTK module on the Enterprise version does indeed provide geotagging data for photogrammetry / mapping missions, would it make more sense in our situation to buy the RTK (non enterprise) versions without the smart controller included (that are listed on Autel's website currently) and then buy the smart controller as an extra add on or to buy the Enterprise version (with the smart controller included) and buy the RTK module as an extra add on?
6. Does the Autel Evo 2 have ATS-B? (this seems to be listed on the upcoming Enterprise version), but I can't seem to find any info on whether or not it is included in the standard RTK models?
I would really appreciate any feedback/advise and if anyone in this community can provide me some of the answers to my questions, it would really help our buying decision!
Thank you!
Dan
I am a new member here.
I am just looking for some buying advise for some new drone systems for my business.
My team and I are looking to switch to the Autel Evo 2 RTK systems for our company - we are cross shopping them with the DJI offering as well. I was wondering if anyone could provide some advise and answer some of the questions I had.
A little bit about our business:
We are doing three main activities:
1. Aerial inspections (mostly building roof inspections, envelope inspections, some solar, and other types of inspection work)
2. Photo and Video (mostly real estate, some commercial / advertisement work)
3. Mapping / Photogrammetry Missions (not a big part of our business currently but looking to grow this sector)
Our team:
We have expertise in GIS/Remote Sensing (we have a specialist on our team with a degree in geomatics and some experience processing / analyzing RPAS data for various mapping applications - this is an area we are looking to grow in)
We have quite a bit of experience with photography, videography / media services. We provide full real estate services, (3d Matterport scanning, videography, HDR photography, etc.), we also do commercials / advertisements / other videos for local businesses, some event photography/videography as well.
We do aerial inspections but are looking to provide more complex commercial roof and building envelope inspections - we have two people who come from a building inspection and architectural background helping us here.
Lastly, myself and one of our other team members come from an aviation background (commercial pilot and flight instructor) - so eventually we also hope to get into providing some aviation training down the line as well.
What we are looking to purchase:
1 x Autel Evo 2 Dual 640T RTK
1 or 2 x Autel Evo 2 Pro RTK (Looking to buy one very soon and then a second system a 1-2 months down the line)
1 or 2 x Autel Smart Controllers
- extra batteries, associated accessories, etc.
- RTK Base Station (we may hold off on this for a few months and use network RTK only for the time being)
Reasons we are looking at these Autel systems:
- The 640T seems to offer the capability we need for thermal inspections (primarily for building envelope and roofing inspections), the radiometric camera seems to have good resolution, etc.
- We need the RTK system for two reasons:
1. to improve position holding / navigation, near metal objects, etc. for inspection purposes (improving safety), this would mainly be for the 640T version
2. for precise / highly accurate geotagged image data - for mapping / photogrammetry missions (for the Pro version with the 6K camera 1" sensor)
- We need 1 or 2 drones with the 1" sensor to be able to provide decent quality video / photos for our real estate and commercial media clients - this would be replacing our current inspire with x5 camera, possibly a tiny bit of a downgrade in some ways, but we think the ease of use, longer battery life, and other benefits should out weigh any minor loss in quality compared with the inspire.
- Lastly, we are really excited with the idea of having one base drone system / platform with can fulfill all our needs, we are hoping that this commonality will ease operations with sharing of batteries and accessories across all the drones we operate, ease of training, etc.
Autel compared with the competition:
The Mavic 2 enterprise advanced and and mavic 2 pro are the main drones from DJI that we are comparing this with. From my understanding with the smart controller, etc. it does work out to be slightly cheaper to go with the DJI option than the Autel drones (at least here in Canada). However, from my understanding the Mavic 2 enterprise advanced's RTK system is not compatible with a base station and most importantly the rtk function does not appear to be of any use for mapping as it doesn't geotag the images. Also the Mavic 2 pro obviously does not have any RTK option. I was told by a DJI representative that we should look at the Phantom 4 Pro RTK for photogrammetry missions, but this adds quite a bit of extra costs, complexity, etc. especially since at the moment we do not have a lot of large scale or high paying mapping jobs (although we are looking to grow in this sector in the future). The obvious advantage with the Phantom 4 Pro RTK is the global shutter but I think this is an area we can comprise on at this stage, and still get reasonable quality results. Our team member who is qualified in GIS / Remote sensing is reaching out to her colleges for more information here, but I would love to hear what others that have experience with mapping missions think about this. We also briefly considered the M300 system - but the costs are just extremely high when you add all the payloads and we aren't sure that we will be able to take advantage of the extra capabilities at this stage - might be something we consider at a later stage.
This is just our thought process currently, but based on the background I have provided and the applications for which we need the drones for, please let me know if there are some other things that we should be considering.
The specific questions I have:
1. Would the photo and video quality from the 1" sensor be decent enough for commercial work (real estate, commercials, etc.)?
2. Which RTK base stations is the Evo 2 RTK compatible with? Does Autel produce their own RTK base station? if not, is it likely that there will be a Autel Base Station coming out? (Similar to the DJI RTK Base Station?)
3. DJI has Enterprise Care insurance (which is included with the purchase of their enterprise drones), does Autel offer this insurance (either complementary or at extra cost) for their RTK / Enterprise models? I see on their website that they have something available for the regular Evo 2 pro but the RTK / Dual 640T / Enterprise models do not seem to be mentioned. This is obviously a very major consideration for us, so if anyone could shed some light on this?
4. Would the Evo 2 Pro RTK be sufficient for doing smaller scale photogrammetry missions (considering it does not have a global shutter like the Phantom 4 Pro RTK)? If anyone has any professional mapping experience with the Evo 2 Pro, I would love to hear your opinion/ experiences...
5. I have read in another post on this forum that there is a Enterprise version of the Autel coming out that includes the Smart Controller and will be offered with both the Dual 640T and the Pro (6K 1") cameras. This appears to have an optional RTK module which can be purchased and attached. Does this RTK module link with the camera system and provide geotagged data (that we need for mapping), or is this similar to the DJI RTK system that's on the Mavic which only improves the position holding / navigational performance? Secondly, if the RTK module on the Enterprise version does indeed provide geotagging data for photogrammetry / mapping missions, would it make more sense in our situation to buy the RTK (non enterprise) versions without the smart controller included (that are listed on Autel's website currently) and then buy the smart controller as an extra add on or to buy the Enterprise version (with the smart controller included) and buy the RTK module as an extra add on?
6. Does the Autel Evo 2 have ATS-B? (this seems to be listed on the upcoming Enterprise version), but I can't seem to find any info on whether or not it is included in the standard RTK models?
I would really appreciate any feedback/advise and if anyone in this community can provide me some of the answers to my questions, it would really help our buying decision!
Thank you!
Dan
