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Parrot ANAFI Ai – Detailed Review Of Its Features And Specifications

Parrot-Anafi-Ai

The first 4G drone The Anafi Ai was introduced by The European drone company Parrot as a partnership with Verizon Skyward in the second half of 2021. This is the first drone that uses 4G as a main data link building between the remote and the drone and uses a Wi-Fi connection. It is just inspired by nature and setting new advanced standards for a drone at your work.

Introduction Of The First 4G Drone Parrot Anafi Ai

Let us start with Parrot. Parrot is the French drone manufacturer that is trying to change the game connectivity-wise by releasing 4G drones. You can get it by doing a pre-order and it is reported to ship later this month. The main targeted audience for marketing is the commercial sector, inspection, Photogrammetry, mapping, and surveying too. When we talk about its price then you have to pay $4000 at pre-order.

The Parrot is using the open-source application FreeFlight for control of smartphones and Verizon 4G LTE for connectivity. It’s water-resistant with a unique camera system that allows 360 obstacle detection with the help of a complete set of stereoscopic cameras of the 48 MP. The Parrot claims that all the remote pilots can easily fly the drone Beyond the Visual Line of Sight without losing connections behind the obstacles like buildings, trees, houses, etc.

The Parrot Anafi Ai—– Technical Overview

We just mention here a naturalist remark about Anafi Ai that there are unknown species in the animal kingdom that have optical sensors which are distributed around its body or you can say that it is just like a visual perception system of sensors.

Anafi Ai— The Most Widespread And Efficient Solution
  • Its mobile head can be oriented on three axes that are left and right, up and down, and horizontal roll to a lesser extent.
  • It has a unique pair of sensors that is adapted to the animal’s behavior and has the vertical plane of the face for tree-dwelling primates for equids for example:
  • We know the pair of sensors are mobile on two axes one is left and right and the second is up and down like a pitch axis.
  • That’s why it is designed by Parrot, called Anafi Ai Obstacle Avoidance System.
Anafi Ai Connectivity

When we talk about Anafi Ai connectivity, let’s discuss its key features first.

Key Features About Anafi Ai
  • It can connect BVLOS flight
  • Having Worldwide LTE compatibility
  • A worldwide continuous connection like you can say always connected
  • Having in-flight cloud file transfer
  • Enjoyable real-time streaming with 12 Mbps video bitrate/low latency 1080p streaming
4G Compatibility And Automatic Network Switch
  • It integrates a 4G radio module that allows transmitting a video in 1080p with a latency of 300ms without any range limitation everywhere in the world.
  • Its 4G modules support more than twenty-eight frequency bands that cover more than ninety-eight percent of the frequencies deployed worldwide.
  • The connection between the drone and controller is also maintained even in the condition of a disrupted situation
  • The capacity and quality of the 4G WiFi network are measured every 100 ms to get streaming.
Video Stream Optimization Algorithms—- Congestion Control 4G

This congestion control 4G algorithm allows to:

  • The measure packet loss over the network loop
  • It measures the round-trip time
  • It adapts the throughput by following such two parameters
  • Anafi Ai connects to the 4G remote control within 30 seconds and it takes only 15 seconds when the drone is not in the range of WiFi
  • The discovery and its initiation based on the VOIP SIP protocol
  • The relay server is used to establish the connections.
  • Its latency is 300 ms
  • Its videos and controls are secured by SRTP/DTLS according to WebRTC
  • Having antennas of 28 LTE bands between 700 Mhz and 2.6 GHz
Anafi Ai—Omni-Directional Transmission System
  • It has four directional antennas with a reflector, such an antenna pair depends on its position and orientation to the pilot’s position.
  • The radio gain of Anafi is strongly homogeneous with a recombined gain of 3.5+/-1.5 dBi in the horizontal plane
  • As compared to Anafi Ai, the downward radiation of the antennas has been improved by +4dB.
  • It uses parameters 802.11 to optimize performance in the drone. Such parameters include several retries, aggregation, MiMo technology that is STBC, disconnection conditions, and management frame data rate.
  • It monitors its connection status 4Hz and easily detects the presence of interference and it also helps pilots to know about losing signals.
  • It uses a channel avoidance algorithm in case of interference detection.
  • To improve its sensitivity by 3 dB, it can switch to 10 MHz bandwidth and gain 40% in a range
Parrot Anafi Ai—–Video Streaming Optimization Algorithms

Let’s highlight key features of video streaming in the Anafi Ai drone.

  • Video streaming has compatibility with RTP players such as VLC and MPlayer
  • There is H264 encoding with RTSP and RTP transmission protocols.
  • Have 1080p at 30 fps, upto 8 Mbit/s
  • Feature of internet streaming sharing with RTMP protocol from 4G phone on the remote control
  • There is local streaming sharing with HDMI video output
  • Videos are compatible with the H264 and MPEG standards
  • Reduced latency of 300 ms glass to glass
  • Multi-camera functions like stereo, vertical, and disparity map camera streams
  • These video optimization algorithms reduce the visual impact of losses on the network, which we call Error Concealment.
  • Metadata is transmitted with video streaming to highlight elements like altitude, battery level, position, angle of the camera, field of view, exposure value, etc.
Anafi Ai—–Camera Features

Its sensor supports high definition megapixel count for detailed aerial shots. Its range is four times greater than conventional sensors and all various scenes can easily be captured with minimal highlight blowout of detail in shadows. All such things happen due to the usage of a Quad Bayer color filter array where four adjacent pixels come in the same color.

The Anafi Ai integrates six aspherical elements and optimizes for low optical flare. It gives a 68-degree HFoV in standard video mode and in standard photo mode which is 64.6 degrees HFoV. It can effectively chapter smooth 4k 60 fps videos that include in P-Log and HDR10 4k videos up to 30fps.

Detail About Drive Modes

Let’s highlight some camera modes related to the number of images taken for each shutter release.

  • The Single Capture Mode
  • The Bracketing Mode
  • The Burst Mode
  • The Panorama Mode
  • The Timelapse Mode
  • The GPS Lapse Mode
The Single Capture Mode

For this mode, a full frame is acquired and quickly processed.

The Bracketing Mode

Users take a burst of three, five, or seven frames with various exposures of each frame, and its available presets are mentioned below:

  • [-1 EV, +1EV]
  • [-2 EV, -1 EV,0,+1EV, +2 EV]
  • [-3 EV, -2 EV, -1EV, 0, +1EV, +2 EV, +3 EV]
The Burst Mode

A user can easily capture a burst of ten frames in one second.

  • The Panorama Modes
  • Vertical 109-degree mode
  • Horizontal 180-degree mode
  • Spherical 360-degree mode, it’s about Sphere, Tunnel outputs, and Little Planet
  • A new Super-wide mode that stitches nine images (HFOV 110 degree, rectilinear)
The Time-lapse Mode
  • 48 MP: 1,2,4,10,30 or 60s
  • 12 MP: 0.5, 1,2,4,10,30 or 60s

The GPS Lapse Mode

This GPS Lapse mode is specially designed for inspection and photogrammetry and it enables taking photos at following fixed distance intervals like 5,10,20,50,100 or 200 meters. Another feature is Zoom which is also available in all photo and video modes, along with 48 megapixels sensors.

Parrot Anafi Ai—- About Photogrammetry

The main key features of Anafi Ai photogrammetry are given below:

  • It is compatible with the PIX4D Suite.
  • Have a feature of one-click flight plan creation
  • Its photogrammetry flight modes are available in FreeFlight 7 and Open Flight also.
  • Its survey-grade accuracy is approx 0.46cm/px GSD at 30m which is 100ft.
  • Another feature is about In-flight 4G transfer to the PIX4D cloud.
  • This photogrammetry technique is used to process images collected by UAVs to make 2D and 3D models and allow our loyal customers to plan maintenance.
  • It is designed for mapping and visual inspection.
  • Anafi Ai creates 48 MP photos in high definition and generates high-density point clouds too.
  • Great sharpness is another advanced feature of Anafi Ai and requires the ability to identify minute details like connectors, serial numbers, rust spots, and incipient cracks.
  • It has 55% more details than 1 sensor.
  • Another feature is autonomous flight means its omnidirectional sensing system is automatically oriented in all directions of movement which is based on stereoscopic vision.

Anafi Ai—- Software Development Kit

Highlighted Key Features
  • It embeds your code with Air SDK on the drone
  • It uses a state-of-the-art drone simulation tool with Sphinx
  • There are mobile applications with Ground SDK
  • There is a customize open-source GCS with OpenFlight
  • It develops Python scripts with Olympe
  • It processes videos and also metadata with PDrAW
The Best And largest Partner Ecosystem For Drones:

Such partners are a part of The Parrot’s Ecosystem.

  • DroneLogbook
  • Skyward
  • PIX4D
  • Highlander
  • RAPID IMAGING
  • SURVEY
  • Drone Link
  • DroneSense
  • TEXTRON Systems
  • Overseen

Conclusion

We would like to conclude here some remarks like the ANAFI AI is a great, impressive and unique design, 4G connectivity, compatible with major programs and protocols, having autonomous photogrammetry modes with sophisticated techniques of 3D model creation from images, provides effective BVLOS mission, provides advance technical features, completely redesigned controllers, and available for pre-order.