Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced

Is the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced a good drone for Land Surveying?

This week, DJI announced its latest drone, the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced. It has an impressive list of features and technical specifications, including a thermal camera, a 48MP visual camera, an onboard RTK module, 34-minute flight time, and improved video transmission signals, obstacle avoidance, and object tracking.

Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced Features

48MP Photo & 4K/60fps Video
32x Digital Zoom
640 x 512 px Thermal Camera
On-Board RTK module
34-Min Max Flight Time

At Aerotas, we only have one focus:

Is the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced a good drone for Land Surveying?

The short answer is no, the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced (M2EA) is not a good drone for land surveying. It is a great drone for firefighting, search and rescue, and other enterprise applications that require a thermal camera. However, these features do not add any benefit for surveyors. The features that lead to high-quality surveys, like global shutter cameras, will be better on much cheaper drones such as the Phantom 4 series. The drones we recommend are intended to collect data for the creation of a topographic or planimetric survey using a photogrammetry workflow. Learn more about the best drones for land surveying

Will the 48MP camera get me better photos?

USE - flight - Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced_hero.jpg

At first glance, the most impressive feature of the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced is the 48MP camera; however, this is a bit misleading and definitely not an improvement over the 20MP sensors on the Phantom 4 drones. This is for a handful of reasons, some of which can get fairly technical. The first is that the 48MP number is, for all practical purposes, most comparable to a 12MP camera. It can achieve this 48MP number because it is using a “Quad Bayer” filter.

What is a Quad Bayer Filter?

You can read the linked article for details on what a quad bayer filter is, but the most important takeaway is that it is most comparable to a 12MP camera in terms of its sharpness, which is what we would really care about with land surveying and photogrammetry.

Another specification to note is the size of the image sensor itself. This drone uses a ½” CMOS sensor, which has only 25% of the surface area of the sensor on larger drones such as the Phantom 4 series, which have 1” image sensors. This further reduces the overall sharpness and quality of the images, even if the raw “megapixel” count is higher. Additionally, this sensor uses a linear rolling shutter, which reduces survey accuracy and is inferior to the global shutters present on the Phantom 4 series of drones.

The camera on the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced is very good for inspection purposes and getting the context of a project. However, when it comes to surveying, the quality of the camera is simply not as good as other products on the market and should be avoided for surveying applications where accuracy is critical.

Is this RTK as good as the Phantom 4 RTK or the M300 RTK?

Another draw to the M2EA is the RTK module. According to DJI, the RTK Module “Supports NTRIP and is capable of centimeter-level positioning accuracy.” However, this is misleading. Most importantly, the M2EA is not equipped with the TimeSync system which continually align the flight controller, camera, and RTK module; this is the technology used to measure the continually changing difference between the center of the RTK antenna and the center of the camera, and this is what surveyors actually care about when trying to accurately measure points on the ground.

The RTK system on the M2EA is designed for accurate navigation, not accurate geolocation of photos. In fact, there is no practical way to extract the data from the RTK system and assign it to the photo geolocations, as you can do on the Phantom 4 RTK or the M300 RTK series. This has nothing to do with the base station or correction network used; it is a limitation of the M2EA RTK module itself.

The RTK module on the Mavic 2 simply cannot do what surveyors need to get accurate image geolocation data.

The M2EA RTK module is designed to conduct automated, detailed inspection missions in complex environments.

How does this compare to other DJI Drones?

Should you upgrade your drone to the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced? If you are using it for surveying purposes, the answer is no. Drones like the Phantom 4 RTK and M300 RTK will result in considerably better accuracy than the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced. Below, we have ranked some of the most common drones for their overall quality in high accuracy surveying applications.

Learn more about the best drones for land surveying, including non-DJI products.

The Best Drones for Land Surveying
https://www.aerotas.com/blog/the-best-drone-for-land-surveying

Is the Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced a good drone for Land Surveying?

Overall, the new Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced is a fantastic piece of equipment, and it is well designed for its purposes. However, surveying is not its purpose, and it is NOT a good drone for Land Surveying.

If you would like to discuss ways to improve your drone program Aerotas is here to help.

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