Just like any other technical equipment, your drone requires some regular maintenance work to make sure it keeps on giving service to you for a longer period of time. Maintaining a drone is very crucial especially for the reason that you’re paying a significant amount of money to buy one. Here are some basic drone care tips and techniques of how to maintain a drone so that you can give your drone the longest life.

Pre-flight Checklist

Most drone crashes are caused by factors that could have been avoided by proper preparation. By preparing a pre-flight checklist, you can check all the crucial elements and conditions before you launch your drone. Of course, this only works if you keep to the letter and do a pre-flight check every time. The items that you will include in your pre-flight checklist is all up to you, but should ideally include the following items:

1. The drone has no existing damage (chipped propellers, cracks in the drone’s body, etc.)
2. Batteries are fully charged. This applies to the drone, the remote controller, and your smart phone (if needed)
3. The drone and the remote controller are communicating
4. The drone’s compass and all its sensors are calibrated
5. The drone has established a GPS signal

By conducting a pre-flight check, you can reduce the probability of unwanted surprises that might only come up when the drone is already hovering at an unsafe altitude.

Cleaning Your Drone

Regular cleaning is something that every drone owner should do. After all, your drone can spend several hours exposed to the elements. Aside from dust naturally building up on the drone’s exterior, its various moving parts could be inundated with various small debris.

You need to build a small kit of cleaning implements for your drone, which should at least include a microfiber cloth, a small brush, some isopropyl alcohol, and a can of compressed air. Start by wiping the exterior with damp cloth, applying alcohol for stubborn stains. Small nooks and crannies can be cleaned with a small brush.

The motors probably suck in a lot of small particles during flight, and these have to be removed via compressed air. Just remember to always hold the can of compressed air upright when spraying so you avoid getting moisture into your drone’s motors.

Keep Your Battery Healthy

Drones are equipped with LiPo batteries, which are incredibly lightweight and compact that come with the burden of also being incredibly fragile. A whole article can be written on how to care for your LiPo batteries, but we’ll start with the most basic thing you need to do – not to overcharge them. Overcharging the battery tends to overheat them, which may explain the number of incidents of LiPo batteries catching fire or exploding while plugged in.

Even if overcharging does not result in as bad an outcome as your battery exploding, it will still contribute to accelerating the deterioration of your battery’s performance. To be fair, battery deterioration is a natural phenomenon which will happen regardless of how you take care of your battery. However, overcharging is one of the fastest and most certain ways to shorten its lifespan.

Let The Drone Cool Down Between Uses

It’s so easy to get caught up in drone flight that drone pilots tend to forget to give their drones a break. While you will certainly need to land your drone to replace batteries after just a few minutes, swapping one battery for another and flying again without giving the motors of the drone some time to cool down is a bad idea. Even with the best lubricant, motors will get hotter the longer they run. A motor that overheats could suffer some permanent damage. At worst, one or more motor can fail while your drone is still up in the air.

Keep the Drone’s Software Updated

All drone makers normally update their firmware very so frequently and it is reasonable that you check for updates. The explanation behind this is they are always battling bugs that put a strain on the drone’s exhibition. It is likewise essential that you update the sidekick application, which makes it simpler to get client support with the present variant of the firmware and application.

In the Autel Robotics family, the EVO Nano+ and EVO Lite drones come with PDAF + CDAF Dual Autofocus System  for quicker and more accurate focus, to tracks fast-moving subjects with incredible precision. But do you really know what is  PDAF and CDAF Autofocus ?  If you don't, read on to find out.

Cameras are essentially built with sensors, a control system, and a motor. Autofocus came into the picture to resolve the blurry image issue caused by incorrect focal measurements. Autofocus technology corrects the badly focused image by being reliable on sensors to locate the correct focus.

Understanding what is PDAF

PDAF is the abbreviation of Phase detection autofocus.  Like any autofocus optical system, pdaf relies on sensors to determine the appropriate focus for manually or automatically selected areas. what is so ingenious about phase detection autofocus technology is that, in a swift operation, images are split into pairs upon hitting the camera.  PDAF works wonderfully well while trying to capture the subject in movement as it is superbly fast. Allows to capture portraits and still life photography in an incredible way. 

Understanding what is CDAF

CDAF is the abbreviation of Contrast detection autofocus. This system relies on the contrast of the image which it is received. Sensor detects the contrast of the image in first lens position, and moves the lens forward or backward to get the contrast of the image in the new position. Then it compares the first result and second result and hunts for next possible best position of the lens. Therefore, CDAF is exceptionally accurate, since it analyses every point of contrast, pixel by pixel, on the camera’s sensor.

Autel Robotics always try to provide the best drones for pilots. With the dual aotufocus system, even beginners can take great pictures like a pro.

When considering the present and future of thermal imaging drone technology, it's worth delving into the technical principles that make thermal cameras function. Understanding how thermal imaging equipment works can inspire more effective use of the technology and new deployment approaches for thermal drones.

The core of a thermal drone is it's thermal image camera. So what is a thermal image camera and how does it work?

The first thing to know about thermal cameras is they don’t work like regular cameras. Regular daylight cameras and the human eye both work on the same basic principle: visible light energy hits something, bounces off it, a detector receives the reflected light, and then turns it into an image.

Thermal imagers make pictures from heat, not visible light. Heat (also called infrared or thermal energy) and light are both parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, but a camera that can detect visible light won’t see thermal energy, and vice versa. Thermal cameras capture infrared energy and use the data to create images through digital or analog video outputs.

Thermal cameras use specialized lenses that pick up IR frequencies, along with thermal sensors and image processors to render the results on a visual display. When an infrared camera is mounted on a drone, the device is typically placed on a gimbal, which stabilizes the image and lets the lens rotate a full 360 degrees. 

The thermal sensors within these advanced cameras, technically known as microbolometers, have received notable updates in recent years. Today's options do not require the exotic cooling materials used in the past, making them much more affordable.