FPV Query from Los Angeles

[Sanpanza]

So I am a commercial photographer from Los Angeles (www.carreonphotography.com) and I bought a DJI Mini 3 Pro to learn how to fly a drone and because I was misinformed about what I could do with it. Hard to find good info.

My purpose is to fly in large warehouses and factories to create capability and process surveys for my clients BUT when I try flying in an empty warehouse the drone drifts or lurches from the flight path.

Lots of people will tell me why flying indoors is not working but I can't find anyone to talk to about how to make it work. If I have to buy another drone system, I will but I need clarity from people who know what they are talking about. I am thinking that perhaps an Avata might be the solution but I don't know yet.

Any thoughts?

 

[Macinfo]

So I am a commercial photographer from Los Angeles (www.carreonphotography.com) and I bought a DJI Mini 3 Pro to learn how to fly a drone and because I was misinformed about what I could do with it. Hard to find good info.

My purpose is to fly in large warehouses and factories to create capability and process surveys for my clients BUT when I try flying in an empty warehouse the drone drifts or lurches from the flight path.

Lots of people will tell me why flying indoors is not working but I can't find anyone to talk to about how to make it work. If I have to buy another drone system, I will but I need clarity from people who know what they are talking about. I am thinking that perhaps an Avata might be the solution but I don't know yet.

Any thoughts?

All DJI Drones use GPS to stabilize the flight, when you're inside a warehouse, you probably cannot achieve enough satellite coverage for a stable flight. The Avata will be no different.

It can depend on the construction of the warehouse your in, some may allow for enough Satellites to stabilize the flight, however it may take a while before that is achieved and may disappear as you try and fly inside that space causing erratic flight and perhaps loss of control. I am not sure there is a good solution for this..

 

[Gary_Seven]

I would create a receiver outside then transmit the GPS signal into the warehouse. Someone may have already invented this- google the problem.

 

[mike foy]

So I am a commercial photographer from Los Angeles (www.carreonphotography.com) and I bought a DJI Mini 3 Pro to learn how to fly a drone and because I was misinformed about what I could do with it. Hard to find good info.

My purpose is to fly in large warehouses and factories to create capability and process surveys for my clients BUT when I try flying in an empty warehouse the drone drifts or lurches from the flight path.

Lots of people will tell me why flying indoors is not working but I can't find anyone to talk to about how to make it work. If I have to buy another drone system, I will but I need clarity from people who know what they are talking about. I am thinking that perhaps an Avata might be the solution but I don't know yet.

Any thoughts?

I perhaps have a solution, but you might not like it, it is to practice flying your drone with the gps turned off and get use to it’s drifting, do this outside where you have plenty of space. Once you can control it, you should then be able to fly it inside. With collision detection turned on, you have a bit of a safety net

 

[LeeB]

GPS vs ATTI is not the real issue. If you are flying indoors, you will MOST LIKELY be in Atti, but there is no guarantee that you will be. It's quite possible that you have GPS indoors and all of a sudden you don't and your drone starts to move "on it's own". Then GPS is acquired again but lost seconds later.
You must be constantly vigilant and should have a reliable VO working with you. You and your VO must be in communication with each other 100% of the time talking about what you are doing while flying and what the VO is seeing (drone position, what lies ahead, any unexpected movement).
You need to be on the lookout for fans, vents, open windows, pillars, etc. Large warehouses can have their own weather patterns which can make flying there tricky.
If you can, practice a lot before flying an actual job and use prop guards.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

If you're looking for a complete solution, it's already been offered to you in another thread...Elios. They are specifically designed for indoors. If budget is an issue then you would likely be looking at fpv with prop guards or a cinewhoop of some kind and lots of practice to fly the type of mission you are looking for. Sktdio has been mentioned and perhaps that might work but I believe it also uses GPS for general stabilization. The vision system however is better than DJI products. IF you take their marketing material at face value, it MAY be able to fly with just the vision system but you might need to set up waypoints to keep it from drifting but it that requires a GPS fix, it's not likely to work. Elios is how it gets done in the real world, so at this point you would just be adapting something for a use that it wasn't designed for so there will be dangers and limitations. Whatever you come up with, come back and let us know, there are others that have asked the same question.

 

[Sanpanza]

GPS vs ATTI is not the real issue. If you are flying indoors, you will MOST LIKELY be in Atti, but there is no guarantee that you will be. It's quite possible that you have GPS indoors and all of a sudden you don't and your drone starts to move "on it's own". Then GPS is acquired again but lost seconds later.
You must be constantly vigilant and should have a reliable VO working with you. You and your VO must be in communication with each other 100% of the time talking about what you are doing while flying and what the VO is seeing (drone position, what lies ahead, any unexpected movement).
You need to be on the lookout for fans, vents, open windows, pillars, etc. Large warehouses can have their own weather patterns which can make flying there tricky.
If you can, practice a lot before flying an actual job and use prop guards.

Hi Lee, thank you, and apologies for the late reply. I think my research is leading me toward the Avata for this work, specifically because it is meant for flying indoors and has prop guards. If I want to include people along the flight path, I think that those will be necessary.

 

[BobaFut]

Hi Lee, thank you, and apologies for the late reply. I think my research is leading me toward the Avata for this work, specifically because it is meant for flying indoors and has prop guards. If I want to include people along the flight path, I think that those will be necessary.

As an Avata owner, I would gently steer you away from one for indoor work, especially for professional purposes. IME, the Avata is much more of a pain in the butt to get working because of being tethered to your phone AND to the goggles, and if you're in a geo zone, it's more of a pain to unlock. It can also be pretty unwieldy to fly without GPS in Sport or Normal modes (where it flies like a traditional camera drone) because it's much twitchier than a camera drone, so the drift is a bit amplified and the drone will sometimes override your inputs when it gets confused, particularly in low light. So your best bet for indoor work is to fly in Manual mode, but then it has a lot of uh...quirks, where it'll kick itself out of Manual mode at inopportune times and basically freeze for a few seconds. It's fine for casual whoop-flying, but if I was getting paid for a job I wouldn't want to be reliant on it. Also, the camera is just okay.

I mainly bought an Avata because the combo is actually a really cheap way to get FPV goggles (and the FPV goggles can be hard to find as a standalone purchase) and it's very durable as a first FPV drone to learn how to fly in Manual mode. So if you have the money, I'd actually recommend getting the Avata combo so you can use the Avata as your practice drone, then getting something like the GEPRC Cinebot 30 with the O3 Air Unit that is easily plug-and-play with the DJI goggles and remote (the FPV Controller 2), with a GoPro for any paid work.