Flying at Night

bkushner · 2024-10-30T23:00:04-0400

Flew at night for the first time. I noticed that in normal mode the drone doesn't so better then 23-24 mph unless you turn off sensors. Anyone else seeing this?

Bad Santa · 2024-10-30T23:44:34-0400

Don't know what drone you're using but the mini 4 doesn't use it's sensors at night.

Curious as to what nav lights you are using.

I'm about to purchase some.

bkushner · 2024-10-31T00:31:09-0400

Bad Santa said:
Don't know what drone you're using but the mini 4 doesn't use it's sensors at night.

Curious as to what nav lights you are using.

I'm about to purchase some.

I posted this in the Air 3S forum so that's the drone I'm talking about. Not sure why your referring to the Mini 4?

Bad Santa · 2024-10-31T00:52:30-0400

bkushner said:
I posted this in the Air 3S forum so that's the drone I'm talking about. Not sure why your referring to the Mini 4?

I didn't see that this was the 3S subforum. My bad.

Does the 3S use sensors at night?

bkushner · 2024-10-31T00:55:49-0400

Bad Santa said:
I didn't see that this was the 3S subforum. My bad.

Does the 3S use sensors at night?

Yes it has a Lidar sensor on the front.

Felix le Chat · 2024-10-31T02:59:23-0400

bkushner said:
Flew at night for the first time. I noticed that in normal mode the drone doesn't so better then 23-24 mph unless you turn off sensors. Anyone else seeing this?

Speed limiting and night flying seems pretty sensible to me, if this is programmed in as a safeguard: I'm genuinely impressed. I've noticed that proximity sensors used by the old flavour of APAS have a range limit, dropping the speed gives the system more time to react - speed was the fail point with my Mavic 2's when I ended up curious enough to put APAS through it's paces.

Using Lidar similar to the units fitted into the bumpers (fenders) of cars gives you reliable obstacle detection in unreliable lighting conditions, but as with those car sensors.... speed is definitely a major factor.

GadgetGuy · 2024-10-31T04:51:02-0400

Felix le Chat said:
Speed limiting and night flying seems pretty sensible to me, if this is programmed in as a safeguard: I'm genuinely impressed. I've noticed that proximity sensors used by the old flavour of APAS have a range limit, dropping the speed gives the system more time to react - speed was the fail point with my Mavic 2's when I ended up curious enough to put APAS through it's paces.

Using Lidar similar to the units fitted into the bumpers (fenders) of cars gives you reliable obstacle detection in unreliable lighting conditions, but as with those car sensors.... speed is definitely a major factor.

Kind of makes sense! Prevents overdriving your "headlights!" LOL!

Meta4 · 2024-10-31T06:11:29-0400

Bad Santa said:
Don't know what drone you're using but the mini 4 doesn't use it's sensors at night.

It's not a case of the drone not using sensors at night.
It's a case of the sensors requiring >15 lux for the sensors to work effectively.

GFields · 2024-10-31T12:51:10-0400

bkushner said:
23-24 mph

That's pretty fast. How fast are you wanting it to go? Just curious

wco81 · 2024-10-31T12:54:06-0400

I wonder if it's true Lidar, which used to be a very costly technology.

In fact, Lidar hasn't been widely deployed in cars. If you look at the Waymo cars, the Lidar units have a spinning cylinder, to pulse the laser output.

waynorth · 2024-10-31T13:15:26-0400

wco81 said:
I wonder if it's true Lidar, which used to be a very costly technology.

Probably not so expensive for DJI, as they more or less founded and own Livox, a leading company in the LIDAR market:

"Livox Technology is committed to LiDAR sensor technologies. The company was founded and is run by people with a dedicated passion providing high-reliability LiDAR products that are high performance, low cost and ready to be put to use by customers around the world.
With offices in Hong Kong, Japan and Shenzhen, Livox is committed to providing 3D
sensing technology for various environmental conditions, and it plays an indispensable role in many fields such as autonomous driving, logistics, robotics, mapping, security, search and rescue, and more."

SanJuanTech · 2024-10-31T13:40:01-0400

Check your gain and expo settings, If recall by default normal mode is sent at or around that speed.

bkushner · 2024-10-31T16:23:01-0400

GFields said:
That's pretty fast. How fast are you wanting it to go? Just curious

Well normal speed is about 33 mph

bkushner · 2024-10-31T16:23:44-0400

SanJuanTech said:
Check your gain and expo settings, If recall by default normal mode is sent at or around that speed.

Not the settings.If it does 33 day and 23 at night there is no NIGHT speed setting that I've ever seen.

Meta4 · 2024-10-31T18:03:01-0400

bkushner said:
Flew at night for the first time. I noticed that in normal mode the drone doesn't so better then 23-24 mph unless you turn off sensors. Anyone else seeing this?

The simple way to confirm whether it's related to obstacle avoidance is to fly the same path with and without oa and see if there is a difference.

davidarmenb · 2024-10-31T20:17:28-0400

wco81 said:
I wonder if it's true Lidar, which used to be a very costly technology.

In fact, Lidar hasn't been widely deployed in cars. If you look at the Waymo cars, the Lidar units have a spinning cylinder, to pulse the laser output.

The spinning is so it can get a 360 degree field of view, similar to radar dishes in airports that also spin 360 degrees. The LIDAR on the Air 3S has a FOV of 60 degrees hospital and vertical