I shot this today... The MA2 kept up great on a several mile drive through town, upwards of 50 mph at times!
Active track car chase!
- Thread starter svenmarbles
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ShannonRawls
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Reminds me of the OJ Simpson car chase a bit ?
The car was veering around the lane and road quite a bit, you weren't flying and driving were you ?
Officer : Were you texting sir ?
Drone pilot : No.
Officer : phone call ?
Drone pilot : No.
Officer : Other app ?
Drone pilot : Maaaayyyyybe ? Hang on, I've got to land !!
The car was veering around the lane and road quite a bit, you weren't flying and driving were you ?
Officer : Were you texting sir ?
Drone pilot : No.
Officer : phone call ?
Drone pilot : No.
Officer : Other app ?
Drone pilot : Maaaayyyyybe ? Hang on, I've got to land !!
DCM-PA
Well-Known Member
Hmmm....... flying directly over a roadway ...?!? Yes, impressive, but within FAA regs for a recreational flyer ??
When I do, which I will, I'll set up the bird to track alongside, not overhead, and avoid doing it within cities and villages (arguably conjested zones).
So, am I being too conservative?
When I do, which I will, I'll set up the bird to track alongside, not overhead, and avoid doing it within cities and villages (arguably conjested zones).
So, am I being too conservative?
Parrotoid
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Last edited:
Duds
Well-Known Member
LOL, no I wasn’t the one driving. I was passenger side with the controller in case I needed to take over. The veering is because of the tree cover. I wanted to try to stay out of tree cover when it could be helped.
Do I understand correctly that the drone is tracking visually and that RC contact does not have to be maintained for tracking to continue? I presume you kept track of the drone through the video feed to the controller/smart device - does that work through the car roof - -did you do anything special to maintain that connection? I found this video very impressive. Also wonder how it flies so much faster than its advertised max air speed. What are its true flying performance specs. Might flight performance (eg, rate of climb, level flight max airspeed) decrease as battery voltage drops?
And gees - if video connection is lost ... and drone erroneously starts tracking something else...
And gees - if video connection is lost ... and drone erroneously starts tracking something else...
The drone is flying completely on its own for this video. It has a visual lock-on feature. You just tap and drag a box of the screen over an object and the camera will stay affixed to that object. In this case it was the top of the car as the drone hovered 200 feet above.
Yes I was watching the feed the entire time with the controller feed inside the car. The car roof is no problem at all. Nothing special was done, it just works fine.
The drone flies 42. When the car surpasses that speed, the drone does sort of an interesting thing. It sort of pulls out and back and keeps the visual lock even as it’s distancing. Where the drone lacks in speed it’s compensated for by having such a high open perspective. Even if it’s being outpaced the drone is going to still be able to keep a visual on a subject for quite a long time. Then eventually the car has to
Slow for a turn or for a stop sign and it catches right up. Also the drone isn’t limited to the straight paths of the roads. If a vehicle has some distance built and makes a turn, the drone can cheat the corner.
It’s actually very difficult to lose this drone, even with a top speed of 42. A car could be much faster, but the drone has more free courses of path and a high vantage point..
Also,... when the drone returned it was with 58% battery in case anyone is curious. We could have gone for much longer.
My hats off to that MA2 and to you also. You set it high enough to avoid any power lines and trees.
Great job!
Cool video, what's interesting is that I watched a video a few days ago (this one...
) and the Air 2 struggled to keep up with someone on a bike, yet in your video it appears to have no real issue keeping up at all with the car. I wonder if the larger target means it is able to track easier / faster, I would assume yes unless the person in that other video had a defective unit.
I think it’s because I had it set well above the height of any obstacles, so there was no processing that had to be done as far as navigating obstacles. Also it was switched to sport mode.. Evidently these modes come into play even in the specialty functions.
Not the size of the object. That video with the bike is normal mode, with the obstacle sensors on -- Drone is limited to 27 MPH in that configuration. In Sport mode with them off, drone can go up to 42.5 MPH. Additionally, the higher altitude means the drone can still see the object even if its lagging a bit in speed for quite some distance.
I was pretty impressed in my limited test, where it was given good chase until it stopped in front of the branch. However, it still turned and tracked me as much as it could without moving.
Maybe because this one was in Sport mode and the other wasn’t, although I am not sure what mode the other one was in.
Interesting, I always thought that the intelligent flights modes were all disabled with Sport mode enabled due to Sport mode disabling obstacle avoidance. At least that was the case with my Mavic Air and a quick Google search turns up multiple results indicating Sport mode disables Active Track.
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