Drone manufacturer Skydio Inc. today released its latest enterprise drone, the Skydio X10

The company says the drone offers new, cutting-edge data capture cameras, autonomy and versatile hardware to serve a range of industries, including defense, energy, public safety, transportation, construction and communications.

The X10 is being released at a critical moment for the drone industry. Skydio argues that although drones are becoming crucial tools for core industries, with an expansive array of applications, it’s becoming increasingly untenable for many of these industries to depend on drones made by Chinese companies because of technology embargoes and security concerns.

Thrown into the mix is the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence that enables intelligent drone systems to collaborate across a spectrum of tasks. Skydio’s commitment to AI and U.S.-based manufacturing has led to the development of the X10, a drone that addresses industry dynamics and paves the way for a future where drones are highly advanced, secure and autonomous tools.

The Skydio X10 offers an array of features and capabilities that are claimed never to have existed before in a single platform. Features include high-resolution cameras,. The X10 is equipped with custom-designed high-resolution cameras, including a 48MP zoom camera capable of reading license plates at 800 feet, a 50-megapixel wide field of view camera for detecting minute details such as 0.1 mm cracks in concrete, and a radiometric thermal camera for measuring temperature differences in challenging environments, such as finding a missing person on a hot desert floor.

The new drone includes a versatile airframe designed for durability and adaptability that is modular and open. The airframe features four payload bays, replaceable gimbal sensor packages and an IP55 weather resistance rating.

The drones also include Skydio Connect, which offers connectivity options for a redesigned point-to-point link, a multi-band radio designed for contested and jammed environments and a 5G radio for a broader range wherever there is 5G coverage.

One of the key features of the new drone is the embrace of AI-powered autonomy. The X10 includes onboard AI powered by 10-fold improvements in compute power and 10 times higher-fidelity, custom-designed navigation cameras. Using AI, the X10 is said to navigate with more confidence, avoiding obstacles in more challenging conditions.

A new NightSense feature enables autonomous flight in zero-light environments so that users can run operations continuously. An all-new spatial AI engine additionally enables real-time environment mapping and fully automated modeling at the edge with 3D scan and onboard modeling.

“The Skydio X10 combines the sensors customers need to get the data they care about, with the airframe and autonomy to put those sensors in the most important places at the most important times,” said co-founder and Chief Executive Adam Bry. “It can do everything expected of leading manually flown drones, but it has the autonomy to enable a scale, scope and impact that has so far been elusive for the drone industry.”

Skydio is a venture capital-backed startup, having last raised $320 million in February. Investors in the company include Linse Capital Partners LP, Institutional Venture Partners LLP, Lockheed Martin Ventures Inc., Siemens Venture Capital GmbH, Accel Partners LP and Nvidia Corp.

Photo: Skydio