DJI is a company you might be familiar with if you are a drone enthusiast. The company’s Phantom drones are probably some of the most popular commercial drones in the market today and for the most part their drones are pretty straightforward in terms of usability. However DJI wants people to start tinkering around.
The company has recently announced the Manifold. This is a small computer that can be attached to a drone that in theory should enhance its capabilities. The catch is that the Manifold will only play nicely with the company’s Matrice 100 drone, which for those unfamiliar is basically the developer’s version of the drone.
The Manifold was created in collaboration with Canonical in hopes that it could lead to “truly intelligent flying robots that can perform complex computing tasks and advanced image processing.” The Manifold computer will come with an array of ports such as USB, Ethernet, HDMI, UART, SPI, and more.
It will be powered by an NVIDIA K1 processor and will run on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. According ot Michael Perry, DJI’s director of strategic partnerships, “With the Manifold, we are entering a new era of smarter, faster and more powerful aerial platforms. Manifold opens up for aerial and ground technology to intelligently work together to solve complex problems. We are excited to see what applications our developer community will come up with for this new platform.”
The Manifold is priced at $499 and is expected to be released on the 15th of November.