Chinese company BYD hosted the 2024 BYD Dream Day at its global headquarters in Shenzhen. At the event BYD unveiled its strategy for Integrated Vehicle Intelligence along with the launch of XUANJI Architecture. What I thought was interesting, and maybe slightly bizarre, was that they also showed their YANGWANG U8 electric vehicle with a Vehicle-mounted UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System).
BYD has actually partnered up with DJI to create the world’s first vehicle-integrated UAS, pioneering an integrated automotive-grade drone bay. This innovation features intelligent storage, automatic battery swapping, and charging management, enabling takeoff and landing with one click. It also supports high-definition, high frame rate, and low-latency image transmission, so that owners can get aerial views to enhance their travel experience.
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:4991187925270564?from=old_pc_videoshow
You can watch the official video from BYD at the link above. You need to skip to 4 minutes 26 seconds to see the section about the drone integration. I have put the link to the actual BYD video instead of just ripping it off and posting it up on a random YouTube account.
https://weibo.com/3564732867/NC98ZF4no?refer_flag=1001030103_
You can see another video showing it in use above.
DJI has had docking mechanisms for quite some time and the one in the YANGWANG U8 looks to be a more compact version that has been modified to be used on a vehicle.
Integrating a drone into a vehicle seems to be more of a marketing stunt than anything else, but who knows, maybe it would actually make sense for emergency services and rescue services.
BYD has been experimenting with DJI integration for quite a while. Above you can see a video taken early last year showing the DJI Mavic 2 Pro interfacing with the the onboard display screen in the vehicle.
