Earlier this year, the Yuneec introduced a camera drone called Typhoon H. It was pegged for a spring release and the good news is that it will now be available for pre-order. Its first drone with RealSense built-in. Plunk down $1,899 ($100 more than mentioned in January) and you will get a hexacopter that uses Intel’s camera system to map its environment and avoid obstacles while it records your adventures. It will also get 4K video, 12-megapixel still shots and a 7-inch Android-based controller. It’s a lot to pay, and you will have to endure a 4-week wait if you’re in the first wave, but look at it this way: that money you spend now might save you from a nasty tree collision in the future.
It measures 309x270x255 mm (12.1×10.6×10 inches). That is considerably smaller than the Typhoon Q500 series. The first thing you’ll notice is that the Typhoon H is a hexacopter. It is got six rotors instead of the usual four — and it only needs five to fly. This redundancy means that if you even lose one rotor for some reason, the drone will be able to recognize the problem and also safely fly back to the home position for repairs.
Second, unlike the P4’s camera, which can only pan up and down, the Typhoon H is mounted on a 3-axis gimbal that can swivel in 360 degrees. The landing gear is also designed to retract at the flip of a switch so that it does not get in the way of your shots.
On top of that, the H is also armed with built-in obstacle avoidance technology. Now in all fairness, the Phantom 4 has this feature, too — but while the Phantom’s sense and avoid technology is visual, the Typhoon H uses sonar, which means that it can also avoid obstacles in low light and complete darkness.
