Mavic Air follow me while decreasing altitude (start at the top of the mountain, finish at the base)

ovisopa · Sep 1, 2018

tcope said:
...Keep in mind, while the Mavic will adjust it's altitude, this only happens under the guidance of the ultrasonic sensors. So the Mavic will only change altitude if it's 30' and lower....

I seen Mavic Air will adjust altitude, in the bellow video (test #3) mavic was quite low, about 2 meters from the ground, and as you can see for a few seconds it did increased altitude , but it lost me so quick at 0:34, I don't really know what was the issue , why it lost me so quick..
1. it could be the ground, as when it stopped tracking it was quite close to the ground, lower than 2 meters for sure. If this was the cause I don't understand why it did not increased altitude even more.
2. it could be the bush on my right that maybe confuse active track, and didn't actually knew who was the subject
3. it could be the bush on the left side of the drone, but I don't really think, as that is not directly in front of mavic, the stereo cameras should not detect that as an obstacle

ovisopa · Sep 3, 2018

I made a few more tests this weekend, one with Active track while riding the bicycle with my kid, Active Track was quite bad following him on a slow downhill country road (slow, max 20km/h) . I Did a better job holding the drone in my hand while going down, one hand on the Handlebar , one on the drone. Risky, bu it worked for a short 1 minute video.

On sunday I went with my dirtbike again, it was a long day, traveled 138km in 9 hours. I did one Follow me session using the Autopilot by Hangar to control the drone.

I did change the settings I said in other posts, I increased Altitude priority to 25m, this is a risk as the Autopilot will not increase altitude so often, risking to hit the ground from time to time (without collision sensors), when the subject is climbing, but not too much to pass the limit set for ALTITUDE PRIORITY. I will keep this thread open for other alternatives for Follow me, if anyone tried other apps that worked better, please let me know. If anyone can try Litchi going up and down, please post back. (I could buy an Android phone and the Litchi App again, but I don't want before I'm 100% sure it works as I want to)

Suggestions strictly regarding Autopilot by Hangar app, please post on the dedicated thread, any other suggestions regarding Follow me options, on Mavic Air ... are welcome in this thread.

ovisopa · Sep 10, 2018

One more test, once again I was lucky, but this time the result is much better than my other tests. More details about settings, or things I still want to improve in the dedicated Autopilot Follow me thread, this is the entire video, with only one cut at the end.

bapski · Sep 22, 2018

ovisopa said:
A few videos with my tests so far, at the beginning I tried using Active Track, but that can only be used on "clean" landscape successfully, going up/down or having a lot of trees/objects in the background will most likely make the drone stop / it will lose the followed subject (I still don't understand why they don't combine active track with GPS, at least for the moments when visually tracking fails it should follow the GPS coordinate to reach the subject.)

Obstacle collision works great, so far

I already purchased Litchi but to my surprise they still don't offer the FOLLOW ME option on iOS, only on android devices (I don't have one) .. so I could not try Litchi's Follow me option yet.

A few days ago I purchased Autopilot by Hangar, and I still test it but because I only have only one battery it's quite a limited test, I don't want to test it as walking or riding on straight road, I want to make real test with up's and down's as that's how my enduro rides are.
Autopilot will not "lose" you (I did about 30 - 40 minutes of Follow Me with Mavic Air and Autopilot by Hangar) but because of a stupid behaviour (in my opinion) it will fly quite far away, and you need to stop so it will catch you up. The behaviour I'm talking about is the changing altitude, this is stopping the Mavic from forward flight, or slow it quite a lot, just to increase altitude, than it flies forward again, than stop and increase altitude .. and so on, because all the stops it mades while I'm going uphill it will be further and further away from me , even if on settings I set it up to be at 10 meter distance, 7 minute altitude with 5m tolerance for altitude and distance.

Responsiveness. I did try to change it but only tried 1 second instead of Instant. I want to try with a much higher value, like 10 seconds. But this I don't think has anything to do with altitude changes, and the way Autopilot controls the altitude.

In the next days / weeks I will do more tests, right now I want to test the Autopilot app more, to see if I can make it fly more smoothly. I also contacted Hangar, last night, I'm curious what they suggest, if there is anything to change to have it ascend while flying forward, instead of stopping forward motion, ascending, continue forward motion.

Mavic Air / DJI Go 4 / Active track / Test #1 - Following a Dirt Bike
- Slow speed
- Trace and Profile test
- Flat terrain

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Mavic Air / DJI Go 4 / Active track / Test #2 - Following a Dirt Bike uphill
- Still slow speed (max 30km/h)
- Uphill terrain

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Mavic Air / DJI Go 4 / Active track / Test #3 - Following a Dirt Bike
- Higher speed at the end of the video (44km/h)
- Flat terrain
- Obstacle detection worked, collision avoided

PS. Always increase the Speed slider to the maximum in the DJI Go 4, so it can keep track of the subject, when riding at maximum 50km/h ... if you ride faster than that it will loose quite quickly (the subject will be smaller and smaller)

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Mavic Air / Autopilot by Hangar / Follow me / Test #4 - Following a Dirt Bike uphill and downhill
- default settings
- bearing reference COURSE
- bearing angle BEHIND
- altitude 8m (6 or 8m .. I always try to have it as close as I can to me)
- distance ~15m (I don't remember exactly)
- risking a lot at 3:00 , just a few seconds before I got of the track because it appeared the drone was at the same height with the powerlines, I went a little lower hoping the drone will over pass, as it seemed it was quite high

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Mavic Air / Autopilot by Hangar / Follow me / Test #5 - Following a Dirt Bike uphill and downhill
- default settings
- bearing reference COURSE
- bearing angle RIGHT

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Have you tried using FOCUS mode on the AUTOPILOT app?

I cant for the life of me get it to work.

ovisopa · Sep 24, 2018

Focus mode will not follow you, only tilt the camera to point to the subject

bapski · Sep 24, 2018

ovisopa said:
Focus mode will not follow you, only tilt the camera to point to the subject

yep.. figured that out after looking at the whole AUTOPILOT:FOCUS video several times...

ovisopa · Sep 24, 2018

I think the best settings are with minimal ALTITUDE TOLLERANCE (1m) and maximum ALTITUDE PRIORITY (25m ... it would be better if there was an OFF option too for altitude priority)

But I still need to test more (because when I look on the logs the altitude of the drone it seems it doesn't change too much, 1 - 2 meters up and down, I need a clean long uphill to see the log file if the drone does change the altitude constantly or only when ALTITUDE PRIORITY reaches the limit).

It would be great if other people would make tests too , but probably there are very few people interested in follow me missions .

bapski · Sep 24, 2018

ovisopa said:
I think the best settings are with minimal ALTITUDE TOLLERANCE (1m) and maximum ALTITUDE PRIORITY (25m ... it would be better if there was an OFF option too for altitude priority)

But I still need to test more (because when I look on the logs the altitude of the drone it seems it doesn't change too much, 1 - 2 meters up and down, I need a clean long uphill to see the log file if the drone does change the altitude constantly or only when ALTITUDE PRIORITY reaches the limit).

It would be great if other people would make tests too , but probably there are very few people interested in follow me missions .

I am as i am into mountain biking... ill test riding my bike around my sub first just to make sure ive got everything good.... tricky thing is where to find a mountain bike trail that is clear of trees and have a wide enough road and whats killing me is i know a perfect spot that goes uphill BUT im just fearful of being hassled of flight restrictions. trail i have in mind is a park (not national or state park) and im sure its NOT on a NFZ....

ovisopa · Sep 25, 2018

@bapski, do you mount the remote and the phone on the handlebar ? I'm really curious to see the log file of a follow me mission while going downhill, please if you fly it on a long downhill share the log file with me (airdata link to flight or the kml file downloaded from airdata, share it as a private message or public post, anyway you like). It's so sad to see so few people communicating regarding Follow me missions with Autopilot app, and I don't think there is any other app that can do a better job, on iOS at least.

I want to try next time to wear some earphones to hear the beeping signals, on my last ride, I lost the drone twice, while riding trough the forest , because of some tall trees the signal was lost, and when it first happen, the drone was trying to auto-land, when I returned a few minutes back I found it hovering above a tree, it couldn't land because there ware trees and I think it figured out there are obstacles. It was ok, when I got close enough to the drone I regained the signal, and could manually bring it to me (I need to find out how to disable the auto-land while I manually control it back, as the drone is trying to go down continuously)

The second time I lost it was worst, as the drone was not flying anymore, I returned back to the place when we last seen it, about 200m back the trail, and I couldn't hear anything, nor the remote had any connection, went back even further.. nothing. Than up and down the trail a few times stopping in different places, after about 15 minutes we went back to where the second follow me mission started, and there it was, sitting on the trail in the grass

But I didn't expected to have it returning to home, those are the settings set in DJI GO 4 app, next time I will try to disable return to home in DJIGO app, and fly it a few km away, and than turn the remote off to see what it will do, it will still go back home or land in the last known remote/subject location. This is what I want, as it's quite stupid to fly back a few km. This is the reason I activated the option DINAMIC HOMEPOINT in Autopilot App, as I definitely don't want to fly back to where I started the mission.

return to home with 36 percent battery.jpg

Lessons learned:
1. Don't fly the Mavic Air battery in a FOLLOW ME mission for more than 10 minutes (I don't see the smartphone screen at all, as it's mounted on my backpack, don't know if any error is shown on screen, or if RTH is triggered, I will disable it in DJIGO from now on)
2. Autopilot app doesn't have an embedded log viewer, so you must upload the log to an external service (you need internet). Use Airdata, set the Airdata token in the Autopilot App settings, to have all your flights uploaded (at least you don't need an PC to download the log trough iTunes, you just need to go back the trail until you have an internet connection, the log will automatically upload, and then you can see what happen at the end of the flight - when connection lost)

bapski · Sep 25, 2018

I use AIRSPACE (network) to connect to my iPhone, so NO i dont take the controller with me.on my initial test i left my contoller in my garage while i walked around my house.

In relation to your concern, id have to have my mtb riding buddies with me so i can have AP follow them and me on the controller to bring the drone back to its home point.

ovisopa · Sep 25, 2018

You connect the drone to your iPhone directly ? The signal is way decreased, if you use the iPhone only.
I would not try to fly with my phone only, I see how much the leafs of a few trees affected the signal with the controller, with only the iPhone you will lose signal quite often.

bapski · Sep 25, 2018

ovisopa said:
You connect the drone to your iPhone directly ? The signal is way decreased, if you use the iPhone only.
I would not try to fly with my phone only, I see how much the leafs of a few trees affected the signal with the controller, with only the iPhone you will lose signal quite often.

Am not sure if you mean connecting to the phone directly and NOT through the remote? the iphone is connected to my ipad and using AIRSPACE.........

thats why im running tests.... and should i do it in the trail, i should be manning the controller just in case i lose a signal. watching the video though seems to be very encouraging,
@17:31

im not sure what the signal range is between devices using AIRSPACE, i do understand there will be latency issues but as to what extent and as to how far, is i do not know... i plan to just do a small stretch, have the drone follow a rider and see how it behaves in a climb...

ovisopa · Sep 25, 2018

Sincerely I don't know what's the point of using Airspace in a Follow Me mission, I think a simple task is over-complicated when using Airspace, you need 2 devices, you need to be quite close one to another to not lose signal, another connection to worry about losing signal.

If you want to Follow another person, and not you, I understand the purpose, but if you want to just follow you , or the person who's caring the backpack with remote controller and smartphone, why make things even more complicated to have multiple devices connected together ?

bapski · Sep 25, 2018

ovisopa said:
Sincerely I don't know what's the point of using Airspace in a Follow Me mission, I think a simple task is over-complicated when using Airspace, you need 2 devices, you need to be quite close one to another to not lose signal, another connection to worry about losing signal.

If you want to Follow another person, and not you, I understand the purpose, but if you want to just follow you , or the person who's caring the backpack with remote controller and smartphone, why make things even more complicated to have multiple devices connected together ?

to follow someone else. am not comfortable tying my controller on my bike and loose it along with the drone going nuts.. maybe in time.. ive seen an adapter i can use so i can secure it to my handlebar. how secure? that im not willing to just risk on.

just curious how it works and if it does how good... how else would you make use of altitude changes since from what im understanding the drone adjusts its height based off the barometric readings of your AIRSPACE DEVICE?

ovisopa · Sep 26, 2018

I also wouldn't mount the controller on the handle bar except when riding on tarmac, but on offroad rides I wouldn't trust the mounts, and even if the mounts will be strong enough there still is a risk if I crash , I could damage the controller/smartphone.

So I made myself an strap, so I can mount the controller and smartphone on my backpack, I think this is the best and safest way to move with the controller turned on. I never mount the control sticks while mounting the controller on the backpack, I can fly it manually back home by moving the joysticks without the sticks mounted.

The only downside of having the controller on the backpack is that you don't see the screen, and because of the helmet you don't hear anything, maybe on MTB you could hear the beeps of Autopilot, as there is no engine noise. On my next ride I will get some earphones to test while doing the Follow me mission.

I don't have Airspace, and if you only want to follow the person who's traveling with the controller, you don't need it. Just the iPhone hocked to the controller and the Autopilot app, the altitude change is reported by the phones GPS, or by it's barometric sensor. In my case I only have GPS on my iPhone 5s

webvan · May 30, 2019

I've found that the best way to be tracked by the Air is using SmartCapture. No need to worry about the phone and/or RC, it has dynamic home point and follows up and down (probably using the ultrasonic sensors since it remains pretty close). In case it loses you it will just hover so if you're far away you can take out the RC, turn it on and bring the Air back.