I’m interested in the POI part of your video and whether you think that could be used as a workaround for the drone insisting on flying too close during active track.
From what I gather from your review and others I have watched is the
Mavic 3 will move to whatever distance it determines is required during active track. Currently too close for many for a variety of reasons.
The POI footage you include implies that you can set whatever parameters you want - height, distance etc. and the drone will maintain that until you change it. In other words it will circle a moving object with those limits until the pilot does something.
What I’m curious about is what happens if the APAS of the drone “interferes” with that circle. Does the drone change altitude or move in or out from the POI and then as soon as the obstacle is avoided resume what the pilot had previously set or ….. ?
Yes I know - weird to reply to your own post but that's just me!
Went for a flight today with the goal of trying to answer my own question about POI "tracking" and discovered some things I find interesting.
Started with OA in Avoid mode - and after cautiously confirming that the
M3 could detect and avoid the only stationary obstacle (a soccer field goal net) where I was flying proceeded to determine what the distance the
M3 would choose for itself while tracking me walking with the drone slightly above head level. I started walking with drone positioned to my right and after a bit I reversed my direction and the
M3 zoomed around behind me and settled at the distance it wanted. I paused the tracking and it was about 30 ft away. The 30ft sounds OK but the
M3 can and will get a LOT closer when it is repositioning itself.
I then positioned the
M3 thirty feet away and initiated a POI track and started walking. I had to adjust the circling speed to try to match my walking speed and got close to having it emulate what the Active track right position was. That was interesting as the distance from the tracked object, the speed of the tracked object and the circling speed can be balanced. I also found that if the circle speed was set right in the middle of the left and right arrow directions the
M3 (in effect NO rotation) just tracked me from behind. Sort of like Active track but with the ability to increase distance from the object and have it STAY there.
I then attempted to track myself in POI while I approached the stationary object to see what would happen. I had to time my approach so that the circling
M3 would encounter the goal net structure. The
M3 climbed a few feet to clear the top horizontal bar while continuing to circle and once clear descended the same amount and continued circling. I returned to the spot where it climbed and it cleared in the same way several times. The part of this that surprised me is the
M3 did NOT do the red radar - sound thing it does when the OA kicks in. What's up with that???
I did some further testing with POI to see what the max distances from me as I walked along with max rotation speed. At approximately 10ft elevation it was very reliable at 100 ft out but starts to get challenged at 120 ft. Increasing height might change that for the better or worse but I didn't test that. Any farther out than 100ft and the person being tracked gets very tiny in the shot so going farther out might have some scenic appeal but you lose the interest in the person imho.
Another interesting thing I discovered is with the OA in "Avoid" the
M3 will abort POI tracking if it gets too close to whatever it sees. It displayed a message "Space too narrow active track stopped" and it sits there at hover until you move it. I discovered this when I was determining how close the
M3 would circle me in POI mode. It decided it was too close to my head and being the more intelligent of the two of us decided to protect me!!
