DJI drone

Dear DJI, Building Sentient Drones Sounds like a Bad Idea.

DJI says that the platform can turn drones into “truly intelligent flying robots that can perform complex computing tasks and advanced image processing.” DJI on the other had has created a computer called Manifold that pretty much does just that. The computer gives new human like capabilities to the Matrice test drone. The Manifold has USB, Ethernet, Mini-PCIe, HDMI, UART, SPI and I2C ports. It’s powered by an Nvidia K1 processor with Kepler graphics, runs Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. All that comes in less than 200g.

manifold brain

Manifold plays nice with developer APIs and libraries because it runs Ubuntu and has a Kepler GPU. So it should have no problem with parallel processing tools, and robotics platforms, with support for CUDA, OpenCV, ROS, DirectX, and OpenGL. DJI believes that in time that artificial intelligence applications for drones will become common place. Manifold is up for sale today at a price of $499 and will ship November 15th. The hope is that the drone will one day “not only be able to sense the surrounding environment, but also identify objects and respond in an instant.” So maybe a director could program a drone to only focus on one actor. The NFL could use it to keep a camera on the Quarterback at all times. The uses of a smart drone are limitless. Keep in mind that you still have to pay $3,299 for the Matrice test drone which does not come with the brain.

By Rubens Saintel

Proud father, #Haitian, photographer, consultant, writer & entrepreneur. I love video games, movies, plays, technology (surprise), beta testing apps and all things sci-fi. SaintelDaily.com |AppleWatch101.com | NBA101.com