Case.10 Sony domestic drone Airpeak S1 experience maneuvering report Vol.01 [Atsushi Taguchi's drone project diary] | DRONE

In the spring of three years ago, I received an email from our website. It was from the Sony AI robotics team who just released the entertainment robot "aibo" in January of that year.

He is considering various industries other than the entertainment robot field, and wants to hear about the business and market of drones. After that, I remember coming to the office and talking about various things for more than 2 hours.

Three years later, Sony drones were finally unveiled to the world. At the "Japan Drone 2021" held in June this year, it became the most notable booth, and everyone who saw the actual machine would have been urged to touch it once.

And the other day, the first flight experience meeting in Japan was finally held in advance using the aircraft under development, and the author also spoke to me, so I will report on that situation.

* The aircraft and software are still under development and may differ from the specifications at the time of product release in September.

Sony Airpeak S1 flight experience event held for the first time in Japan!Scheduled to be held in various places in the future

Airpeak has created a "professional supporter" system, and one of the axes is co-creation activities that let users experience it and further create it from the feedback. This time, it was a preliminary experience session, and it was held by calling out to several people who had already communicated with the Airpeak development team.

The aircraft used this time is still under development. The experience flight was also conducted by manual flight within a range of about 230m in diameter x 120m in altitude. The on-board camera of interest is the highly sensitive α7S on the day. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the recorded video from the camera, but I was able to try out the basic flight functions.

On the day of the event, after explaining the basic specifications and precautions in advance, we will move to the field and experience the flight. Even so, it is attractive to be able to install Sony's full-size cameras α1, α9, α7R, α7s series, and even cinema camera FX3 (lens is 14 mm to 85 mm).

Finally Airpeak S1 flight!High-precision flight that is easy for beginners even though it is a high-end aircraft

The first impression of the Airpeak S1's flight is the flight accuracy that "easily puts it in the desired trajectory". All the pilots who experienced that the first aircraft manufactured by the manufacturer was this high precision were surprised. I will tell you the first impression while watching the flight video by the pilots on the day.

If you listen to the audio of the video, it may be transmitted a little, but the propeller sound was very quiet for its size. The aircraft size is not much different from the DJI Inspire 2 and Matrice 200 series, but it doesn't have the slightly fat bass propeller sound of both aircraft. If this is the case, it may not give a feeling of intimidation to the cast at the time of shooting.

The flight mode can be selected from 3 types, and this time ALT (ATTI mode in DJI) was sealed. The selection is made with the switch on the upper left of the radio.

In this flight experience, I flew in Std mode, but as I mentioned at the beginning, I got the impression that "it can be easily put on the orbit as I expected". This is due to the unique "on-course" setting, which suppresses the sideslip of the aircraft due to centrifugal force and supports smooth turning flight according to the pilot's intention.

Normally, when turning, the direction of the aircraft is changed while suppressing the trajectory that spreads outward by centrifugal force by inserting the operation of rudder (rotation) + aileron (lateral movement), but if you use the "on course" function, the rudder operation is extreme. It was possible to take a turning trajectory as intended with only (the on-course function can be set to OFF).

However, with my usual habit, I inevitably put ailerons when turning, but I felt that I could easily put the ailerons on the orbit as intended without fine adjustment.

However, on the other hand, with the default settings, it seemed that the pilot's detailed operations were not reflected (the impression that the pilot's detailed operation blur was absorbed and stable flight was maintained), so that was also a little stressful. However, in Vel mode, the acceleration rate and maximum bevel can be set individually, so I felt the possibility of customizing the movement to my liking (I didn't try it on the day ...).

I think that you can see the goodness of the aircraft's kinetic performance by watching the video. Although it has a certain size, it moves quickly depending on the settings. I think it can handle shooting of moving subjects at high speeds such as cars and trains without any problems.

I piloted it with a radio equipped with an 11inch level iPad, but I felt it was a little big for the author who usually uses DJI's radio. However, this may be a part that you can get used to and absorb.

The specifications are standard because the radio is equipped with HDMI output, USB output for expansion, customize button, etc. I also tried HDMI output, but I was able to use it without any serious video delay (output at 1080 / 60fps).

It also supports two operations that separate camera operation and aircraft control, and since each radio is connected to the aircraft (DJI Inspire 2 communicates between the master and slave radios), it is used as a camera operation. Not only that, it seems that it is possible to show the image in real time to a client who is a little far away (currently, it is said that the camera setting will be fixed to the slave side if 2 radios are connected, so be careful).

In addition, as a personal request, if you can assign the pan operation (horizontal axis rotation) of the camera to the dial on the upper right of the radio, you can operate the tilt pan even with one operation, so I am happy for the one-operator writer. … Maybe a niche need! (DJI Cendence radio is possible, so I use it for one operation of Inspire 2)

Lots of fun features!High functionality to meet various needs

Due to the short experience time and the aircraft under development, there are still many functions and features that I would like to try in the future. For example ...

Summary: Airpeak S1 is a high-performance drone that meets a wide range of needs.

Although it is still only basic operation, what I felt through the flight experience was that it is an aircraft that has answers to a wide range of needs.

With this function, I felt that it could be used not only by advanced drones but also by professional photographers (beginners of drones) who are using Sony's α series.

There are many features that haven't been touched on yet, and I still feel that they are "finally", but I'm really looking forward to the evolution of the product until September. If I have a chance to touch it again, I would like to report in more detail next time.