Drone manfuacturer Skydio today announced the sequel to its flagship series of pilotless aircraft. Simply called the Skydio X2, the drone in question is a rather big lad, so to speak, in the sense that it can handle payloads while recording thermal imagery – on its own. If you are not particularly familiar with this specific firm, Skydio’s whole gimmick is that their drones are meant to be somewhat autonomous.
No human intervention needed, whatsoever. Of course, that isn’t so easy to achieve when you are selling custom-built modular quadcopters. But Skydio surely intends to try its best this time around. And if nothing else, the Skydio X2 at least already appears to be its most autonomous drone to date from the standpoint of battery life. As the official specs sheet promise up to 6 kilometers, i.e. 3.7 miles of maximum range, which is pretty remarkable.
For reference, its direct predecessor, the Skydio 2, could only do up to 2.2 miles (3.5 km), and that one wasn’t able to carry any payloads, did not have thermal imaging, and so on. The Skydio X2 will be releasing in the United States in the fourth quarter of the year, though its availability could easily remain limited until spring.
