Optically assisted RTH

[GOAP]

An old drone pilot friend of mine said that "some" drones take a picture of their RTH location straight down so that after it's close to home via gps, it switches to the camera to really get the exact same spot landed on. I was told thats one of the reasons that people use the landing pads so the drone can 'see' where it's supposed to land.

Is this true?

Does the Air 2 have this tech?

Thanks!

 

[Gagey52]

The level of AI required to take a photo recall the photo, make a comparison and land based on that is not in our consumer drones. It’s all GPS.
Regards

 

[brett8883]

An old drone pilot friend of mine said that "some" drones take a picture of their RTH location straight down so that after it's close to home via gps, it switches to the camera to really get the exact same spot landed on. I was told thats one of the reasons that people use the landing pads so the drone can 'see' where it's supposed to land.

Is this true?

Does the Air 2 have this tech?

Thanks!

That’s true. On the Mavic Pro it was called precision RTH and you could turn it on and off. I don’t have an Air 2 but it may just be automatic, part of the fly app being simpler than DJI Go 4.

On the Mavic Pro when you have this feature turned on and do an automatic take off it flys to about 10 feet and takes the photos. When it RTH it will rotate the aircraft to the orientation it was when it took off so it can match up the photos and you can see it making small adjustments to land right where it took off.

The purpose of the landing pad is just that, to give it a more precise high contrast “target” to lock on to. At least with the Mavic Pro RTH could be off by feet with this turned off but is just inches with it enabled.

 

[elborak]

DJI calls this feature "Precision Landing". It is supported on the Air 2 and is covered in the User Manual.

 

[old man mavic]

the precision landing feature on my MPP is very accurate ,it lands within a couple of inches of its take off position on the mat ,its quite fun to watch as it descends ,i dont use it on a regular basis preferring to fly home myself ,but i will at least once on a flying session use it to check that it works ,as i said its fun watching it come down adjusting its position then at about three feet off the ground it stops locates the mat turns to it take off heading and lands

 

[BrokenAero]

An old drone pilot friend of mine said that "some" drones take a picture of their RTH location straight down so that after it's close to home via gps, it switches to the camera to really get the exact same spot landed on. I was told thats one of the reasons that people use the landing pads so the drone can 'see' where it's supposed to land.

Is this true?

Does the Air 2 have this tech?

Thanks!

Mavic Air 2 User Manual v1.4 en

Precision Landing

The aircraft automatically scans and attempts to match the terrain features below during RTH. When the current terrain matches the Home Point terrain, the aircraft will land. A prompt will appear in DJI Fly if the terrain match fails.

Landing Protection is activated during Precision Landing.

The Precision Landing performance is subject to the following conditions:

a. The Home Point must be recorded upon takeoff and must not be changed during flight. Otherwise, the aircraft will have no record of the Home Point terrain features.

b. During takeoff, the aircraft must ascend vertically 7 m before moving horizontally.

c. The Home Point terrain features must remain largely unchanged.

d. The Home Point terrain features must be sufficiently distinctive.

e. The lighting conditions must not be too light or too dark.

The following actions are available during Precision Landing:

a. Press the throttle stick down to accelerate landing.

b. Move the control sticks in any direction to stop Precision Landing. The aircraft will descend vertically after the control sticks are released.