That is false. DJI Air 3S, Mini 5 Pro, Mavic 4 Pro, and even the Neo 2 are consumer drones that ship with forward-facing LiDAR for obstacle avoidance.

FCC proposal doesn’t distinguish that safety sensor from mapping-grade or military LiDAR - it covers any drone that “contains or integrates” LiDAR.

If Air and Mini ain't hobbyist grade idk what is.

> Hobbyist drones also don't ship with lidar in stock.

Is Neo a $20 toy? LIDARs are getting cheap quick, at some point when ToF sensors add $10 to BoM they will be in all drones.. I guess except US only SKUs? Not like you can't get pretty much the same data using just a single camera, GPS+IMU fusion and structure-from-motion..

That ship has sailed all of the countries that can get into space know every square inch of every piece of territory in every country of the world, there isn’t any place to hide, the local American drone makers in America for example don’t want to make civilian drones. They want guaranteed contracts from the American government selling high priced military equipment civilians be damned.