Parrot Anafi

The Parrot Anafi (stylized as ANAFI) is a French quadcopter drone that is operated remotely and built by Parrot SA. While the first consumer version had many flaws, later models were taken up by several governments and militaries.

Parrot unveiled the Anafi in June 2018. According to CEO Henri Seydoux, the drone’s look came from insects: the camera acts as the head, the electronics as the thorax, and the battery as the abdomen. Its four arms fold for portability, much like the competing DJI Mavic Air. The drone uses a two-axis gimbal that can tilt 180 degrees vertically, with yaw stabilization handled electronically.

It carries a 21-megapixel camera with a Sony IMX230 sensor, shooting 4K HDR video and offering “lossless” digital zoom (1.4× in 4K, 2.8× in 1080p). Top speed is 33 mph, and it can handle winds up to 31 mph. The battery lasts 25 minutes, beating the Mavic Air’s 21 minutes, but the drone had many problems. Wired called the HDR video “pretty terrible” and “more or less unusable,” and the Anafi suffered from image noise in both standard 4K and HDR modes.

The Verge found that placing a hand under the proximity sensor mid-flight caused the drone to lose control and crash, though its carbon-fiber and fiberglass construction let it survive a crash into a tree.

The Anafi Thermal came out in April 2019 for businesses and first responders. It added a 160×120-pixel FLIR Lepton 3.5 thermal camera (the same one used on the DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual) below the unchanged 4K HDR camera. Its folding arms were made thinner, cutting 10 g from the weight and boosting flight time to 26 minutes.

A military version, the Anafi UA, was announced in April 2020. It has an improved camera setup with three sensors: one 32× zoom camera and two thermal cameras.

The Anafi USA for enterprises was released in June 2020. Its gimbal holds three sensors: two 32× zoom 21MP optical cameras and one 320×256-pixel FLIR Boson thermal camera. It has an IP53 protection rating and uses a 3400 mAh high-density LiPo battery for 32 minutes of flight.

Three additional versions followed: the SE, MIL, and GOV. The Anafi USA SE uses a Skycontroller 4 remote like the baseline USA but is meant for government organizations. The USA MIL and GOV are both NDAA and TAA compliant, Blue sUAS approved, and use a Skycontroller USA remote.