Teal: The World’s Fastest Consumer Drone
What do you get if you cross a race car with an unmanned aerial vehicle? You’ll probably get Teal, which is considered to be the fastest production drone in the world. It can reach speeds of more than 70 miles per hour and even go as fast as 85 mph, which is usually reached by race cars or by ordinary cars that have no care for speed limits.
Teal is developed by 18-year-old George Matus, who flew his first drone at age 11 and became a professional drone racer at age 16. After graduating from high school, he was offered a fellowship by tech mogul Peter Thiel, and he used this opportunity to start his own company named Teal. His experience as a racer apparently gives Matus a great foundation as an entrepreneur; he knows what people would like to see in a drone, and he strove to create a model that can cater to these needs.
Teal can go from zero mph to 60 mph in just 1.1 seconds and stay stable even when facing 40 mph winds. Like many drones, it comes with a built-in camera, which has a 1/2.3” sensor and can take 13MP photos and 4K videos. The camera is electronically stabilized, so there’s no need to worry about taking blurry pictures and shaky videos.
Aside from its super speed, Teal is set to make waves because of its powerful NVIDIA TX1 processor, which allows it to have image recognition, autonomous flight, and machine learning and puts it on par with the Yuneec Typhoon H drone and the DJI Matrice 100.
Matus is also planning to release the drone’s APK when it rolls out, which means that it will become an open platform and allow developers to build on it. Teal is currently accepting reservations for its new drone and will ship the first batch in time for Christmas 2016.
