DJI Matrice 100

The DJI Matrice 100, introduced by DJI in 2015, was the company’s first open‑source development platform for professional UAVs. Built on the legacy of the earlier Inspire series, the Matrice 100 was designed to give researchers, developers, and commercial operators a flexible base for custom payload integration and software experimentation. Its modular airframe, made of lightweight carbon‑fiber and aluminum, supports up to 2 kg of external equipment while delivering a flight time of roughly 25 minutes with a 4‑cell Li‑Po battery. Key features include an integrated flight controller with GPS/GLONASS dual‑frequency positioning, redundant inertial measurement units, and a configurable I/O matrix that allows users to connect cameras, LiDAR, multispectral sensors, or communication modules. The platform runs DJI’s open SDK, enabling real‑time telemetry, autonomous waypoint missions, and third‑party programming in Python, C++, or ROS. By providing an affordable, ready‑to‑fly testbed, the Matrice 100 accelerated research in aerial mapping, precision agriculture, and inspection, influencing later DJI enterprise models such as the Matrice 200 and 300 series. Its impact lies in democratizing advanced flight control technology, setting a benchmark for modular, developer‑centric drones in modern aviation.