What Is DJI AirSense?

Start­ing Jan­u­ary 1, 2020, DJI will equip all new drones over 250 grams with Auto­mat­ic Depen­dent Sur­veil­lance-Broad­cast (ADS‑B) receivers. Accord­ing to the report, such a mea­sure will sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve the safe­ty of drone flights in the gen­er­al air­space.

ADS‑B is a satel­lite air traf­fic sur­veil­lance sys­tem. It includes a GPS receiv­er that deter­mines the loca­tion of the air­craft and the para­me­ters of its flight, as well as a set of trans­ceivers. The lat­ter broad­cast data on the flight para­me­ters of an air­craft or heli­copter to a net­work of ground sta­tions and spe­cial satel­lites, which already trans­mit them to air traf­fic con­trol ser­vices and oth­er air­craft.

In addi­tion, ADS‑B also receives infor­ma­tion about the weath­er along the air­craft’s flight route. Cur­rent­ly, many air­lines are equip­ping air­craft with ADS‑B trans­ceivers. From Jan­u­ary 1, 2020, for exam­ple, all air­craft fly­ing to the Unit­ed States must be equipped with such trans­mit­ters.

The ADS‑B sig­nal receiv­er for DJI drones is called AirSense. Accord­ing to the descrip­tion of the devel­op­ers, this device receives sig­nals from air­craft with­in reach. In the event that the flight path of the drone inter­sects with the flight path of the air­craft, AirSense will noti­fy the drone oper­a­tor.

Whether the sys­tem is able to inde­pen­dent­ly steer the drone away from a col­li­sion and whether its warn­ings can be ignored is not spec­i­fied. Oth­er details about the oper­a­tion of the sys­tem are also not dis­closed. Cur­rent­ly, only two types of DJI drones are equipped with ADS‑B receivers: the Matrice 200 and the cor­po­rate Mav­ic 2 Enter­prise and Mav­ic 2 Enter­prise Dual.