DJI's firmware update lets the Matrice 4D reach C6 compliance in the EASA Open category — the highest risk tier, letting EU operators fly closer to uninvolved people and shrink ground safety areas — without the drone in a box, expanding the highest
DJI cut the hardware tether on its Matrice 4D enterprise drone this month, expanding C6 certification in the EASA Open category from a Dock 3-tethered setup to standalone controller use. The change lets enterprise and public-safety pilots fly the aircraft in the same regulatory tier without buying or renting the company's drone-in-a-box.
DJI shipped the change as a firmware update on the existing airframe. According to the company's enterprise blog, Matrice 4D and thermal-equipped Matrice 4TD operators who load firmware v17.1.5 and pair the aircraft with the DJI RC Plus 2 Enterprise controller now hold C6 status on their own. The hardware is unchanged. DJI broadened the certified operating configuration that the regulator accepts for that tier, a configuration that previously required the dock as a load-bearing element rather than the aircraft alone (DJI Enterprise Insights).
C6 is the highest-risk class inside the EASA Open category, a regulatory lane that lets EU drone operators fly closer to uninvolved people and shrink their controlled ground areas relative to lower subcategories. For an enterprise BVLOS operator, those privileges translate directly into where and how a job can be flown. Until this month, the same Matrice 4D could only sit in that lane when it was nested inside a Dock 3 deployment, a fixed or vehicle-mounted nest that lands, charges, and re-launches the aircraft between flights. Buyers who didn't want a dock or couldn't justify its cost could still fly the aircraft under lower-class open category rules, but they could not access C6's closer-to-people and ground-area privileges without it (DroneDJ).
Trade-press coverage has described the change as a cheaper path to BVLOS for STS-02 operators, the EU regulatory scenario that authorizes beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights under specific conditions. DroneXL's analysis makes that case explicitly: a pilot who would otherwise need a Dock 3 deployment to reach C6 can now reach it with the aircraft, a controller, and a firmware load. That characterization is industry analysis layered on DJI's release rather than a company claim, so it should be read as one informed take, not an official number (DroneXL).
Drone Watch Europe's coverage confirms the controller path is now in scope for STS-02-style operations and emphasizes the operational change for European enterprise fleets (Drone Watch Europe). The firmware threshold (v17.1.5) and the standalone-mode operational requirements come from DJI's own materials and are company-stated rather than independently audited here. The EASA C6 framework context in the trade press cited above is referenced through coverage rather than a direct EASA document; treat the regulatory backdrop as common background rather than a primary-source claim.
The update does not move the Matrice 4D into the EASA Specific category, the heavier certification lane that covers most true BVLOS operations in the EU. Operators who need full BVLOS authorizations still go through their national aviation authority under Specific, with the usual SORA risk assessment and operational authorization. DJI's move expands the Open category ceiling for an aircraft that already had the airframe and payload to do useful work, by treating the controller-only configuration as a recognized operating mode rather than a Dock 3 dependency.
The next milestone to track is whether DJI files comparable standalone-mode expansions for the rest of the Matrice line that is still Dock-tethered in its current C6 declarations. Each platform's configuration is evaluated separately by the regulator. For STS-02 operators specifically, the practical question is no longer whether the Matrice 4D can reach C6, but whether their existing controller fleet is the RC Plus 2 Enterprise model and whether their procedures match the v17.1.5 operational requirements DJI has documented.