DJI Zenmuse H20N Night Vision Camera

Research institutions and robotic companies around the world have created many inventive drones that could be used for search and rescue operations. There was the bipedal flying drone, a robotic “snake” that flies, a drone that flies and crawls like a bat – just to name a few. But all those are still far from practical applications.

For now, as far as search and rescue operations go, the good’ol drone is first responders’ best bet. All it needs is a good set of thermal or night vision imaging systems for night operations. DJI knew that too and it has just launched a night vision imaging system, called Zenmuse H20N, that will starlight vision to its commercial platform, the DJI M300 RK drone.

Zenmuse H20N integrates the drone maker’s starlight sensors into its zoom and wide-angle cameras. The Zenmuse H20N is a very capable unit boasting a 640×512 dual thermal camera with dual optical zoom (2x and 8x, affording it up to 32x zoom), Night Vision Wide Camera with 2 MP Starlight sensor, a Night Vision Zoom Camera with 4 MP Starlight sensor and 20x optical zoom (and 128x max zoom), and a laser rangefinder with 1200 m max range.

Interestingly, the H20N supports synchronized zoom between thermal and starlight night vision cameras, allowing you to scale both images simultaneously side-by-side comparison of details.

In addition, the imaging system allows the operator to pinpoint the location of stranded victims and share it with the ground rescue crews’ mobile devices like laptops and smartphones. I would imagine this part of the feature would work best if the remote area has good mobile coverage. Just saying…

Other highlights include IP44 rating, intelligent night scene enhancement, -20 degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius (-4 to 122 Fahrenheit) operating temperature, smart tracking of the subject of interest, high-res grid photo, and one-tap panorama.

The DJI Zenmuse H20N Night Vision Camera is available for purchase from DJI online store and DJI Enterprise dealers, with a starting price of a cool US$12,999. That’s right. The camera costs nearly as much as the Matrice 300 RTK which it is designed for.