New Zealand Team Builds an “AI Chainsaw Drone” on a DJI Matrice Platform

A research team in New Zealand just turned a problem that normally means bucket trucks, ladders, and a lot of risk into something that looks like it belongs in a sci-fi workshop: an “AI chainsaw drone.”

The “chainsaw drone” project comes out of the University of Canterbury’s UC Vision group, and yes, it is basically a chainsaw mounted to a DJI Matrice-series drone (the public writeups call it a DJI Matrice, but they do not state if it’s the Matrice 300 RTK or Matrice 350 RTK). (University of Canterbury)

The team’s pitch is simple: pruning and trimming around live power lines is dangerous work, and the places that need trimming are often awkward, windy, and hard to reach. In their own words, the goal is “safer and more efficient trimming around power lines and pylons, without putting people up on ladders and scaffolding in the first place.” (University of Canterbury)

It’s Not Just a Chainsaw, It’s an Experiment in Autonomy

If you just slap a spinning blade on a drone, you get a machine that is one gust away from becoming a blender – or one of my student’s passion projects they start and finish on a Friday. The UC team is leaning heavily into computer vision and autonomy because the job environment is messy: branches move, leaves block line-of-sight, and wind next to a tree canopy is not forgiving.

RNZ quoted project lead Professor Richard Green describing why they automated the hard part of flying close to moving branches:

“[It’s] really challenging for a human to do, to manually operate a drone in that environment.” (RNZ)

And that is where the “AI” label comes from, not marketing fluff. RNZ also describes the drone using onboard stereo cameras and AI navigation processing to recognize branches in 3D and guide itself in close, dynamic spaces. (RNZ)

From small pruning tool to “wrist-size” cuts

This is not their first pass at the idea. UC says last year’s version carried a pruning tool, but the team refined the concept into a chainsaw-equipped platform for thicker cuts.

Otago Daily Times put a number on the capability jump: their earlier pruning tool was limited to about 30 mm branches, while the chainsaw drone can cut through roughly 60 mm of dead wood. (Otago Daily Times Online News)

ODT also reports the team expects commercialization on a near timeline, with Green saying:

“It’s working so well now that we have got funding for commercialisation, so I expect it to be commercialised next year.”

That “next year” comment was published in June 2025, so the implied target is 2026.

Why this DJI platform question matters (Matrice 300 vs Matrice 350)

A lot of people online will immediately try to ID the exact airframe, and for good reason. The Matrice 300 RTK and Matrice 350 RTK are both in that heavy-lift, enterprise bracket where weird tools start to make sense.

But in the official UC release and the mainstream coverage, the drone is referenced at the “DJI Matrice” level, not as a clearly named M300 or M350. If UC shares more close-up shots or a spec sheet later, that question gets easy. Right now, the safe answer is: DJI Matrice platform, exact model not confirmed in the public materials. (University of Canterbury)

The bigger picture: drones keep turning into tool belts

A chainsaw is an extreme example, but it fits a larger trend: enterprise drones are increasingly treated like flying tool carriers.

You can buy a flamethrower drone attachment online right now. Throwflame’s TF-19 WASP Gen2 is listed at $1,599, with a stated 30 ft range, a 1-gallon fuel capacity, and about 100 seconds of firing time. (Throwflame.com)

And on the non-hilarious, actually-useful side, there are tethered cleaning and “pressure washing” style systems marketed specifically for DJI Matrice 300/350-class drones, designed for high-elevation cleaning jobs (facades, towers, solar panels, and more). (Foxtech FPV)

Not every payload is a good idea, and legality and safety matter a lot once you cross into “weaponized” territory. But the trajectory is clear: as airframes get more stable and payload ecosystems get more mature, drones start looking less like cameras with propellers and more like flying work platforms.

DroneXL’s Take

This thing is awesome. Yeah, it looks wild at first glance, but it is also exactly the kind of “tool-on-a-drone” thinking that keeps pushing the industry forward in ways most people do not expect. A chainsaw is dramatic, but the real story is the same one we keep seeing over and over: unmanned platforms are turning into flying work systems that can take on jobs that are risky, repetitive, and hard to reach.

Last year, there was a conversation with another teacher about a similar concept for palm trees in particular. That idea stuck because it is the same problem in a different outfit: real-world maintenance work that is time-consuming, dangerous, and often done in places that are awkward to access.

When a team shows a prototype like this, it does more than grab headlines. It gets the word out there that drones are not just for photos and videos. Civilian applications are only getting more interesting, and the benefit is not theoretical. It is safety, efficiency, and getting people out of the most sketchy parts of the job.

From an education standpoint, this is the kind of project that hits the sweet spot. It is the dream scenario: give students the supplies and knowledge to tinker, build, and tune whatever projects they can imagine, then watch them surprise you. A colleague showed his students how to work with microcontrollers, and some of them ran with it immediately. They built morse code sound boards, a working jaw for an articulating skeleton project, and a handful of other genuinely cool builds that had nothing to do with drones at first, but everything to do with learning how to think like builders.

The crossover is real, too. Most recently, one of my Esports students decided to learn everything possible about drone tech while waiting for their game time. That student has logged roughly 30 hours in simulators already and will be stepping into my aviation class next year.

He fell in love with the racing side of drone flying, and that is exactly how it starts for a lot of people. One curiosity turns into real skill, then real opportunities. If a chainsaw drone gets even one kid to look at a drone and think, “Wait, I could build something useful with this,” then it is doing its job before it even touches a branch.