The DJI Matrice 5TD now has a name in an official record. A registration entry on China’s civil drone platform lists the aircraft as “DJI Matrice 5TD,” model code M5TD, at 2.6 kg (5.7 lb) empty and 3.05 kg (6.7 lb) maximum takeoff weight, filed under the light category for power line and oil pipeline inspection.

Leaker Igor Bogdanov posted the screenshots on September 21 and followed on September 25 with a product render that prints “DJI Matrice 5TD” under a white airframe, then on September 26 with a new photo of the gray prototype, arms folded, on asphalt. The TD suffix is the one DJI uses for the thermal, dock-based version of an enterprise drone: the Matrice 4TD is the aircraft that lives in Dock 3.

The Matrice 4TD weighs 1,850 g with its battery and tops out at 2,090 g. The successor’s registered figures put 750 g on the airframe and 960 g on the takeoff limit.

Registration Entry Puts The Matrice 5TD In China’s Light Class

The listing sits on the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s UOM platform, the national drone registry. It names SZ DJI Technology Co. as manufacturer, M5TD as model, and power line patrol and oil pipeline inspection as intended use. The class field reads light, China’s 250 g to 4 kg band.

Bogdanov posted the entry on X alongside a matching one for the DJI Neo 3, whose 192.7 g weight and September 21 production date DroneXL had not seen before the Neo 3 box leak of September 15. The Matrice 5TD entry leaves the serial number and production date blank, so the aircraft it describes had not yet been built when the form was filled in, or the screenshot was taken before those fields were completed.

The weight gain has a plausible home. The Matrice 5 prototype photographed in July carried a dome on the top deck consistent with integrated LiDAR and a cylinder consistent with a built-in RTK antenna, both of which the Matrice 4 series sells as external add-ons. The Matrice 4D and 4TD launched with Dock 3 on February 27, 2025, at 54 minutes of forward flight, and a heavier airframe carrying the same battery class does not fly longer. Nothing in the registration entry lists flight time, so which way DJI went is not on the record.

DJI’s Own Support Bot And A Leaker Both Point To A Dock 4

DJI’s support chatbot now offers “Matrice 5” as an enterprise model. A screenshot Flyby Guys’ Stephen Sutton posted on September 25 shows the bot asking a customer to name their drone, “e.g., Matrice 4, Matrice 5, or other series.” The reply carries DJI’s “Generated by AI intelligence” label.

A language model filling in an example is weaker evidence than a product page. Bogdanov’s September 25 post went further than the render. He wrote that there will be a DJI Dock 4 and that it “will be used in stores soon.” He has given no source for the dock, and DJI has said nothing about either product. His track record on this platform is good: he put the Matrice 400A on the record before launch and fed accurate Matrice 4 specifications ahead of the January 2025 debut.

A Dock 4 is the part American operators should read twice. Dock 3 and the Matrice 4TD cleared the FCC before the December 22, 2025 Covered List action blocked new authorizations for DJI hardware. A Dock 4 and a Matrice 5TD have no such grant, and none can be issued while the designation stands.

DroneXL’s Take

Every police department and utility that bought into Dock 3 since February 2025 just found out where the ceiling is. The Matrice 4TD’s drone-as-first-responder pitch was a box on a roof that gets a better aircraft every couple of years without anyone climbing a ladder. That upgrade path now ends at the U.S. border: the agencies that standardized on Dock 3 will run a 2025 aircraft while European and Asian departments drop a heavier, better-sensed successor into a Dock 4. My read is that the 750 g is LiDAR and RTK moving into the airframe, which is the exact capability an inspection crew wants closest to a power line. The Covered List does not protect those crews from anything. It freezes them, and DJI’s Ninth Circuit case is the only thing on a calendar that can thaw them.

Sources: Igor Bogdanov on X (September 21, September 25, September 26), Stephen Sutton on X, DJI Enterprise Dock 3 specifications

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.