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Litchi and Gimbal Control

Facherty

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My Mavic Air has done quite well on Litchi missions up to around a 1.5Km/1 mile away - it has generally shown a live moving image at that distance, and the drone's location is regularly updated in the on-screen map.

I have a few easy Litchi missions of this length, from my home, which I use just to give little Dronie a run out in the sunshine. One of these missions generally produces a nice film, and I've kept about five of them, shot at different times of day. In a couple of movies there are massive variations in gimbal pitch that can last 5-10 seconds. The intended target is well framed in the shot, then the gimbal looks down on the ground, or above the target. It then resumes. Flight path is unaffected - it's still going the right way, at the right height - but the view is awful. Since I only fly when UAV Forecast says I should, I am not inclined to blame the wind, and since the flight path is maintained, I am not considering satellites as an explanation. So...

Looking at the Litchi website (Help - Litchi), under "Waypoint Gimbal Pitch", I read, "Litchi can control the gimbal pitch automatically during the mission, as long as the aircraft is within range of the remote controller". Can this be right? It can navigate to a great distance without the controller, and return home on time, but the commanding of the gimbal pitch relies on a good radio signal? Can this be fixed, or is there another app that is more capable?

Thanks,

Andrew
 
My Mavic Air has done quite well on Litchi missions up to around a 1.5Km/1 mile away - it has generally shown a live moving image at that distance, and the drone's location is regularly updated in the on-screen map.

I have a few easy Litchi missions of this length, from my home, which I use just to give little Dronie a run out in the sunshine. One of these missions generally produces a nice film, and I've kept about five of them, shot at different times of day. In a couple of movies there are massive variations in gimbal pitch that can last 5-10 seconds. The intended target is well framed in the shot, then the gimbal looks down on the ground, or above the target. It then resumes. Flight path is unaffected - it's still going the right way, at the right height - but the view is awful. Since I only fly when UAV Forecast says I should, I am not inclined to blame the wind, and since the flight path is maintained, I am not considering satellites as an explanation. So...

Looking at the Litchi website (Help - Litchi), under "Waypoint Gimbal Pitch", I read, "Litchi can control the gimbal pitch automatically during the mission, as long as the aircraft is within range of the remote controller". Can this be right? It can navigate to a great distance without the controller, and return home on time, but the commanding of the gimbal pitch relies on a good radio signal? Can this be fixed, or is there another app that is more capable?

Thanks,

Andrew
That's always the way it worked as far as I know. Speed changes are controlled by the remote as well. Those two parameters are not able to be uploaded to the drone. If you are getting erratic gimbal pitches then you are probably on the very edge of connectivity. Heading, yaw, and elevation are uploaded and not dependent on RC connection.
 
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With Litchi that is the way it is for gimbal control. Other platforms using other programs and apps did not have that issue.
 
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Thank you 53-63-6f-74-74 and parkgt for your comments and clarification. Now that i think about it, I had received warnings about the speed changes - that if Litchi loses connection with the drone at the non-default speed, it will complete the mission at that speed. It seems difficult to understand why the programmers could not address this in the same way the software 'commands' the drone to turn, yaw, rise or drop...
 
Thank you 53-63-6f-74-74 and parkgt for your comments and clarification. Now that i think about it, I had received warnings about the speed changes - that if Litchi loses connection with the drone at the non-default speed, it will complete the mission at that speed. It seems difficult to understand why the programmers could not address this in the same way the software 'commands' the drone to turn, yaw, rise or drop...
As far as I understand, it is a limit that DJI has put on the SDK package that is available to other party's use such as Litchi.

Rod
 
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