On the day public comments close on the Federal Communications Commission’s proposal to pull “military-grade” drones off the American market, DJI Enterprise has filled Booth 903 at Commercial UAV Expo in Las Vegas with hardware that fits the proposed definition item for item.
The Matrice 400 on the front table integrates a rotating LiDAR. The Zenmuse L3 beside it is a LiDAR payload. The Zenmuse H30 series and the Matrice 4T carry thermal imagers. The Dock 3 under the “Dock Solutions” sign is a docking station. The FlyCart 100 on its own plinth weighs up to 330 pounds (149.9 kilograms) at takeoff and carries LiDAR of its own. Comments in PS Docket 26-189 are due tonight. The Section 232 tariffs that put a 100% duty on thermal imagers, docking stations and aircraft over 55 pounds take effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern tomorrow, the show’s final day.
I photographed the booth twice: half-built on Tuesday afternoon, before sitting through the afternoon half of DJI’s FlightHub 2 dock-automation workshop, and fully dressed on Wednesday morning. DJI is a Silver sponsor of the show. The stand is a catalog of exactly what the FCC has asked the public whether it should remove.
Every Aircraft On Booth 903 Falls Inside The FCC’s Proposed Definition
Public Notice DA 26-758 opened PS Docket 26-189 on July 21 and defines military-grade drones by capability in seven categories: 55 pounds or more at takeoff, economic-poison spraying, thermal imaging, LiDAR, docking stations, defense-article integration, and swarming. Each item on DJI’s stand meets at least one of them.
The FCC published the proposal in the Federal Register on August 3 at 91 FR 48870, which set the September 2 deadline. It would prohibit the continued importation and marketing of previously authorized foreign-made drones and components that meet the definition, with a 180-day wind-down after any final rule. Marketing, in FCC usage, covers advertising, distribution, sale and lease. DroneXL walked through the seven categories in August, and by Tuesday’s keynote about 2,600 comments had been filed.
The Matrice 400 is the surprise. DJI’s own specification page lists a horizontal rotating LiDAR and an upper LiDAR as part of its obstacle sensing, so the bare airframe qualifies under the LiDAR category before any payload is attached. On the stand it carried a Zenmuse P1, a plain RGB mapping camera, and it still falls inside the definition. The Zenmuse L3 on the next display stand is a 1535-nanometer long-range LiDAR unit. The Zenmuse H30 series placard sells the payload on its infrared performance, which is a thermal imager. The Matrice 4T sat on the table with a speaker and spotlight kit and a Manifold 3 compute module on its back, its thermal gimbal pointed at the aisle. A Matrice 4D-series aircraft sat inside the Dock 3, and the dock itself is the fifth category by name.
The FlyCart 100 hits two categories on its own. DJI’s wall graphic puts the aircraft at 330 pounds (149.9 kilograms) with a 187-pound (85-kilogram) payload, six times the FCC’s 55-pound threshold, and lists LiDAR among its sensors.
None of this is banned today. Every product on the stand received its FCC equipment authorization before the December 22, 2025 action that added all foreign-made drones to the Covered List, which is why they can still be imported and sold. Docket 26-189 is the proposal to close that door. As the operators on Tuesday’s Covered List panel spent their opening minutes explaining, the proposal does not ground aircraft already owned. It reaches future import and marketing clearance, which turns a repair queue into a dead fleet over two or three years.
The FlyCart 100 Carries An FCC Grant And Still No US Price
DJI’s heavy-lift delivery drone holds FCC grant SS3-T100A2411, shared with the Agras T100 spray platform, so its presence in a US exhibit hall breaks no equipment rule. What it lacks is a US price. DJI’s American product page offers a dealer contact form and nothing to add to a cart.
When DJI launched the FlyCart 100 globally on December 4, the aircraft did not come to the United States. DroneXL’s June 2025 report on the China unveiling noted that US regulatory approval was pending. The FCC grant shows the equipment authorization already existed, so whatever kept the aircraft out of the US in December, it was not a missing FCC approval. Nine months later the aircraft sits under a “DJI Delivery” sign in Las Vegas with an orange winch line coiled beneath it.
Whether a US buyer can place an order is a question the booth does not answer. DJI’s US site takes contact details rather than orders. At least one US dealer lists the aircraft online. What can be said is that DJI chose to make an aircraft it has not sold in America the physical centerpiece of its American show presence, on the day the FCC’s record closes on whether aircraft of exactly that class should be barred from import.
DJI Spent Tuesday Teaching The Dock Automation The FCC Proposes To Cut Off
The show’s official program lists DJI’s Tuesday session as “DJI Enterprise Workflows: L3 LiDAR Data Processing & FlightHub 2 Dock Automation,” a $20 four-hour workshop split into a Terra and Modify block for L3 point clouds and an afternoon block on periodic dock automation with the FlightHub 2 Analyzer module.
I sat in the second half. The workshop listing matches what ran: dated dock flights over a desert mine site, auto-diffed for change, with the software flagging a new excavator, a new loader, added vehicles and a removed haul truck in plain English, then generating a PDF report with aircraft and object coordinates. One button converts every flagged change into a tracked defect with a severity level from one to five. On Wednesday a slide on the booth’s right-hand screen billed the same product as “FlightHub Analyzer: Automating Your Data Pipeline,” credited to Michael Li of DJI Enterprise.
Two of the seven proposed categories describe that workflow. The dock is category five. The L3 that produced the point clouds in the first block is category four. DJI took twenty dollars a head to teach American operators how to run both, at a show where the docket closing that night asks whether either should still be importable. In 2024 DJI’s session at this same show was a four-hour hosted demo included free with a conference pass.
The booth also carries a “Free Trial” QR for FlightHub 2 and DJI Terra. Software is the one part of DJI’s stand that none of the seven categories names.
The 100% Tariff Tier Hits On The Show’s Final Day
President Trump’s August 13 proclamation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act applies to drones entered for consumption from 12:01 a.m. Eastern on September 3, the closing day of Commercial UAV Expo. Aircraft at or under 55 pounds draw 25%. Thermal imagers, docking stations and heavier aircraft draw 100%.
DroneXL covered the proclamation when it was signed and explained on Tuesday why shelf prices will not jump overnight: the duty attaches at import, and inventory already inside the country clears at the old rate. The capability lines match the FCC’s. One proceeding proposes to remove thermal, dock and heavy-lift hardware from the market. The other doubles its landed cost while the first is pending.
Run the booth against the tariff schedule and the result is the same as against the docket. The FlyCart 100, the Dock 3 and the thermal Matrice 4T all sit in the 100% tier, and so does any H30T. The Matrice 400 with the P1 sits at 25%, but nobody buys an M400 to fly an RGB camera. Its buyers fly the H30T and the L3.
A stack of Drone Advocacy Alliance flyers sat on the front table beside the Matrice 400 brochures, pointing visitors to the group’s filing guide for 26-189. Disclosure: DroneXL has been a Drone Advocacy Alliance partner since June 2024, and the Alliance receives sponsorship from DJI. DJI told its own customers on August 7 that the proposal could amount to a ban on future sales of currently available products, calling it “a total reversal from the FCC’s previous position.”
DroneXL’s Take
I walked into Caesars Forum on Tuesday expecting a diminished DJI, and I said so before the booth was finished. Silver sponsor, one stand, a paid workshop. That read was wrong, and the corrected version is more interesting than the one I went in with.
DJI did not shrink its American presence. It curated it. Every object on that stand is something the FCC has proposed to bar from import, and DJI put them under lit signage at the industry’s largest US show in the final hours the public record was open. I don’t read that as an accident of inventory. The FlyCart 100 alone had to be brought to a market where it has no list price. You do not ship a 330-pound aircraft to Las Vegas to fill a corner.
My read is that DJI is making the argument the FCC asked for, in three dimensions. The Public Notice explicitly requests data on whether comparable domestic alternatives exist and what removal would cost. Booth 903 is the exhibit: a 59-minute-endurance airframe with power-line-grade obstacle sensing, a 1535-nanometer LiDAR rated to map 39 square miles (100 square kilometers) a day, a dock that runs a first-responder program without a pilot on site, and a cargo drone lifting 187 pounds. Walk the rest of the hall and price the domestic equivalents. That is the comment DJI cannot file in words.
Yes, the FCC’s concern is real in one narrow sense. Docks and heavy-lift airframes are the platforms a hostile actor would want, and the December National Security Determination does not become false because the hardware is useful. But the proposal does not distinguish a dock at a Texas police department from a dock anywhere else, and a rule that reaches a roof-inspection LiDAR and a fire department’s thermal camera by category reads as industrial policy with a security label. DroneXL made that argument on August 10, and nothing filed since has changed it.
The number that matters tonight is not on the booth. It is the comment count. Pilot Institute’s Greg Reverdiau told the Tuesday keynote that roughly 2,600 comments had been filed against close to half a million Part 107 holders, one in every 180, and that the figure should be 100,000. “Not doing anything doesn’t do anything,” he said. DJI has built its US show presence out of proposed contraband. The operators who fly that equipment for a living have until midnight to say what losing it costs, and most of them have said nothing. Watch the final tally when the FCC’s system closes; whether it lands nearer 3,000 or 30,000 will tell you how seriously the Commission can afford to take the industry’s objection when it drafts the final rule.
Sources: Federal Register 91 FR 48870, FCC Public Notice DA 26-758, Commercial UAV Expo workshop program, DJI Enterprise Matrice 400 specifications, FCC equipment authorization SS3-T100A2411, DJI Viewpoints
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.
