A Dock 4 is permanent infrastructure, so most of the work happens before it arrives. These are the things to check for your site.

The dock needs a solid base with open sky above it and room for the lid to open. With the lid closed it measures 639 × 640 × 836 mm, and open it's 1,750 × 640 × 550 mm. It weighs 66 kg without batteries. The mounting hole pattern is 400 mm × 400 mm, the same as Dock 3, and DJI publishes steel frame base drawings alongside the installation manual.

It has to be installed below 5,000 m altitude. It runs from -40°C to 50°C, is rated IP56, and DJI rates it for wind up to 12 m/s and rain up to 2 mm/h. If it's going near houses, Silent mode keeps it under 60 dB. Normal mode is 65 dB.

Before you settle on a spot, fly a site survey with a Matrice 4 Series or Matrice 4D Series aircraft, with the aircraft and controller on the latest firmware. Those are the aircraft DJI specifies for Dock 4 site surveys.

The dock takes 100 to 240 V AC at 50/60 Hz and can draw up to 2,000 W. Give it a stable supply. If the power does go off, it can keep running on the aircraft batteries stored inside it, but it can't charge the aircraft while it's on backup. There's more on that in DJI Dock 4 batteries: how many you need, swapping and power cuts.

The dock connects by Ethernet, and DJI recommends a gigabit connection. Plan for at least 20 Mbps each way, ideally 40 Mbps or more, with latency under 100 ms. 4G is also possible with a DJI Cellular Dongle 2 fitted to the O4 Ground Station.

Network restrictions cause a lot of dock problems. The dock has to reach DJI's servers for FlightHub 2 to work, so bring your IT team in early.

Dock 4 won't run without the DJI O4 Ground Station. It handles the video link, acts as the RTK base station and provides the network connection. It's a separate unit, 170 × 170 × 352 mm and 2.68 kg, rated IP67, and it's powered from the dock over a single Ethernet cable that carries power and data.

Mount it high up, in the open, away from metal structures and other radio equipment, and fix it securely to a wall or the ground. It needs a clear line of sight to the aircraft while the aircraft is sitting in the dock. The cable between the two should be Cat 6 or better and between 1.5 m and 80 m long. For runs under 5 m, use the cable supplied with the dock.

Most dock operations in the UK fall in the Specific category and need an operational authorisation from the CAA. Having a dock doesn't change that, and the application takes time, so start it alongside your site planning. We can help you work out what your operation needs. Call us on 0330 111 7177.

DJI's installation and setup manual, maintenance manual and base drawings are all on the Dock 4 downloads page.