DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

CalTopo/SARTopo support from within DJI Pilot or Fly?

ischonfeld

Active Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2020
Messages
32
Reactions
9
Age
70
Location
Riverton, New Jersey
Does anyone know if there's a way for DJI Pilot or DJI Fly to support or integrate with CalTopo/SARTopo?

It would be very useful if the DJI app provided tracking of the drone location during a search managed by CalTopo/SARTopo, much like the app tracks search teams on foot.

It would also be useful to see the drone's location to know it's working within the boundaries of an assigned search area when there are no geographic/visual indicators to go by.

NOTE: this isn't an airspace or legal or FAA question, it relates to coordinating and reporting area covered back to a command center "live" during an overhead search.
 
This is a fantastic question, and one that I am also trying to find out. My fantasy: not only can you overlay the drone onto SARTopo so the Search Manager can see where you are, but you could also overlay the various team members‘ location on to the relevant DJI App so the pilot could track the ground pounders’ locations and help them out as well.

One minor—temporary—fix would be to get something like a burner phone and attach it to the drone, with the phone having its own SARTopo ID on it, but that would only show the bird to IC: it would not show searchers to the pilot unless s/he had a second screen showing SARTopo.

I will hope to hear new information on this one!
 
I'm looking at adding something like this to a SAR-specific drone app (see eagleeyessearch.com#pilot ). If you have a specific idea of what features you'd like, feel free to reach out.
 
SARTopo/CALTopo allows the search coordinator to layout search areas and then assign them to the teams. Teams on foot have the app on their phone and it tracks their position in real time on the same map where the assignments are laid out. So on foot, you can see if you're in your assigned area and reach a boundary. You can also see if you've covered the assigned area in full before moving on to the next.

When working with a drone, the RPIC is looking at 2 screens - the assignment screen in the app, and the drone feed (and/or map view). Unless there happen to be geographic features delimiting search area borders that show up on the app and on the drone screen (creeks, roadways, edge of woods, etc) it is very difficult to be sure you're in the assigned area and have covered it.

What would be helpful is either to (A) be able to send live GPS location of the drone to the SARTopo/CALTopo system so it can be plotted live in that app, or (B) import the search area assignment from SARTopo/CALTopo into whatever drone app is used to fly the drone. The former option is much better, since the search app provides live progress to the coordinators and now they would be able to see drone progress in addition to what they now see for teams on foot.

Perhaps with the advent of RID broadcasts, the GPS location info could be used and sent to the search app.
 
Thanks for your reply. (B) " import the search area assignment from SARTopo/CALTopo into whatever drone app is used to fly the drone." is something I was planning to add already. I will investigate the difficulty "(A) be able to send live GPS location of the drone to the SARTopo/CALTopo system so it can be plotted live in that app"
 
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
130,588
Messages
1,554,135
Members
159,591
Latest member
Albrecht0803