DJI Enterprise has released a video joining the dots between the Dock 3, the Matrice 4TD drone, and cheaper skiing and snowboarding holidays – and perhaps in the future more efficient hosting of events like the Milano Cortina 2026.
DJI's Dock 3 allows drones to almost take over the management of a ski resort – just as we've seen drones help with the videography at the Winter Olympics, here they can help with the delivery of the snow. That's significant because it accounts for half a resort's high energy budget.
In the video DJI has shared, we can see how the Dock 3 has been used by the iconic Planai resort in Austria to deploy drones which can monitor the snow machines at the resort.
Manufacturing snow at the resort is an expensive business, and very dependent on weather conditions, which the drones can monitor very precisely. The more precise the monitoring, the less wastage of manufactured snow, and the lower the creation cost.
If, however, snow is created without careful monitoring, it can end up being blown away from the ski trails, and result in the use of expensive water and energy, which, in turn, increases the costs at the resort.
The other function of drones is to inspect the rest of the infrastructure, to ensure that cable cars and lift systems are in good condition.
The DJI-based system has been set up by local technology company KIONIQ which bought them from spektakulAIR, DJI's local reseller, and they use the FlightHUB software to get 'a completely new perspective'.
Monitoring how the wind affects the spray of the snow from the snow guns that produce snow increases efficiency over time.
DJI Dock 3 can operate in temperatures as low as -30°C (-22°F), one of the few that can. That means drones can pop out at night with lights on – possibly the death of the risky midnight snowmobile run. This has a safety advantage in that staff aren't required to go out onto the slopes to do the inspections (and cover the snow with burned carbon). All the engine power and risk of snowmobiles is a more serious issue than the fun over time!
New snow guns were also deployed, which could be remotely directed, and other extra capabilities now easily exist at the resort, such as locating missing persons with drones, and even pre-checking for avalanche risk.
Ski lift passes cost money because snow is expensive to make – this can help keep the costs down, so these drones (with their 50-minute flight time, triple camera (thermal, zoom & wide), IP55 weather resistance, and autonomy) offer some hope.
The DJI Matrice 4TD uses thermal drone cameras to read the temperature of the surface. We also have a guide to the best thermal drones and the best thermal cameras.
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Check our guide to the best camera drones and, if you are somewhere these drones aren't allowed, the best non-DJI drones.
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