Very disappointed by Litchi and Air 2S

[Peio64270]

Hello,
About 2 weeks ago I was complaining in a Facebook group about the poor stabilization of my Air2S gimbal during a waypoint mission performed in a moderately windy afternoon with gusts of about 15mph.
The lateral (horizontal) stability looks very deficient, ruining completely the video. This is particularly proeminent when the drone is climbing, receiving the wind by 1/4 laterally, less with wind almost backward with a rather horizontal flight.
Look at the video which correspond to grossly waypoint 2/waypoint 6 of this mission :
https://flylitchi.com/hub?m=V416gcTElF#
Did somebody else faced this problem ?
If so, is there something to do to fix it or, at least, to improve it ?
Video :
https://youtu.be/xOi4bxBm_5A

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Being virtual stick control there is not much you can do to get smooth video. I have pretty much given up trying. Since the drone is taking commands from the controller App it becomes very jerky at times.

 

[vindibona1]

Is it Litchi's problem, or is there something amiss with your drone that is causing it to go off kilter and then have the GPS try to correct it? I'd check the props, look for any entranglements in the rotores (long hairs, etc) recalibrate the IMU and make sure that it isn't struggling to hover in place. After checking the drone, if possible, re-fly the mission. I've not experience doing that with my Mavic 2 or my Mini 2.

 

[Chrislaf]

The only thing you could try would be to re-do the mission on a less windy day. A 20mph (32km/h) wind is quite a strong wind when the mission is flying by virtual sticks as there is likely a bit of a delay especially in the location that you were flying, so it is not surprising that the video was jerky. As Agustine has stated there is not much you can do about it now as all new drones that use the Fly app have been using virtual sticks for waypoint missions and likely will continue to do so in the future.

Chris

 

[Peio64270]

The only thing you could try would be to re-do the mission on a less windy day. A 20mph (32km/h) wind is quite a strong wind when the mission is flying by virtual sticks as there is likely a bit of a delay especially in the location that you were flying, so it is not surprising that the video was jerky. As Agustine has stated there is not much you can do about it now as all new drones that use the Fly app have been using virtual sticks for waypoint missions and likely will continue to do so in the future.

Chris

Thank you. I think that the problem comes from the gusts. The wind by itself was not so violent. What surprises me is that stabilization was good in the same gusts when hovering or flying manually. It looks like the processor could not decide between the taks sent by Litchi (heading and so on) and the actual heading of the drone deviated by the sudain gusts. But this is not so apparent when driven by actual sticks, manually. In this case, the gimbal corrects its focus in real time...

 

[Peio64270]

Is it Litchi's problem, or is there something amiss with your drone that is causing it to go off kilter and then have the GPS try to correct it? I'd check the props, look for any entranglements in the rotores (long hairs, etc) recalibrate the IMU and make sure that it isn't struggling to hover in place. After checking the drone, if possible, re-fly the mission. I've not experience doing that with my Mavic 2 or my Mini 2.

I don't think that this is coming from the drone who fly normally under other conditions (including other missions). A 360 panorama executed the same afternoon some minutes after this mission worked perfectly well, with a drone keeping the right attitudes despite the gusts. You can see it here :

Agathonisi island at sunset (Greece) 360 Panorama | 360Cities

360° panorama photo from Greece by Pierre Aubineau. Agathonisi (aka "Gaidaros") is a tiny island North-East of Dodekanisos with only two small villag...

www.360cities.net

 

[Capt KO]

We lost a lot when DJI dropped Go4 for FLY. Waypoint function was a big one. FLY is also a power hog forcing pilots to buy new devices to use it. Litchi uses less but the drones built for FLY seem to have been downgraded in the functions department.

 

[vindibona1]

We lost a lot when DJI dropped Go4 for FLY. Waypoint function was a big one. FLY is also a power hog forcing pilots to buy new devices to use it. Litchi uses less but the drones built for FLY seem to have been downgraded in the functions department.

Interesting observation. I have to wonder why DJI put its eggs in the Fly basket as the Go4 platform is darn near perfect. The only think I miss with Go4 and my Mavic 2 is the yaw/gimbal speed/smoothness feature that is available for my Minis in Fly. The Go4/Mavic 2 only has EXP settings.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Interesting observation. I have to wonder why DJI put its eggs in the Fly basket as the Go4 platform is darn near perfect. The only think I miss with Go4 and my Mavic 2 is the yaw/gimbal speed/smoothness feature that is available for my Minis in Fly. The Go4/Mavic 2 only has EXP settings.

A conversion I had with a DJI employee about this very thing his answer was a business decision to separate the commercial drones from the not so commercial drones (anything that uses the Fly App) He said if the customer wants waypoints and mapping features he will have to spend the higher price tag for this option. Considering some companies have dropped the recreational flying drone series altogether I guess we should be happy they went with this format and not have to buy into the higher priced drones.

 

[Chrislaf]

I also think it has to do with safety because virtual stick missions prevent users from flying outside of controller range.

Chris

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I also think it has to do with safety because virtual stick missions prevent users from flying outside of controller range.

Chris

I forgot to mention that the conversion had to do with the Air 2S. He said it was more then capable of uploading waypoints to the drone so it was more of a marketing decision then anything else.

 

[HoozierDroneDaddy]

A conversion I had with a DJI employee about this very thing his answer was a business decision to separate the commercial drones from the not so commercial drones (anything that uses the Fly App) He said if the customer wants waypoints and mapping features he will have to spend the higher price tag for this option. Considering some companies have dropped the recreational flying drone series altogether I guess we should be happy they went with this format and not have to buy into the higher priced drones.

I would think the M3 would be in the commercial category.

 

[Ralph thompson]

I would love someone to buy up what’s left of the Autopilot app. and bring it up to date for todays operating systems. It was rock solid in really gusty conditions. I have a video using the Inspire 1 Pro where the trees are heaving over, a poolside umbrella is being blown around etc and the video pans and pitches smoothly as the drone maneauvers a tricky circuit around the property. Sadly miss Autopilto.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I would think the M3 would be in the commercial category.

Nope, M3 is not but the mavic 3 enterprise is.

 

[HoozierDroneDaddy]

Nope, M3 is not but the mavic 3 enterprise is.

And I would agree with Ralph above regarding AutoPilot. Used to used it with the Mavic and it was great! Have been watching for an update since.

 

[AZDave]

I forgot to mention that the conversion had to do with the Air 2S. He said it was more then capable of uploading waypoints to the drone so it was more of a marketing decision then anything else.

I'm convinced it also had something to do with various governments being concerned about drones being capable of illicit unattended missions. Like flying drugs into a prison or dropping a grenade into a football stadium. I'm not saying that Fly prevents any of that, only that DJI was under a LOT of pressure to make consumer drones less worrisome.

 

[Cymru]

I also think it has to do with safety because virtual stick missions prevent users from flying outside of controller range.

Chris

Hmm. Not hard to add a line of code for waypoint missions to RTH on loss of signal though.
I can see legal issues with unattended waypoint missions with no connection.

Suspect a lot is to do with trying to differentiate between consumer and pro features by software crippling....They'll add it on enterprise level drones.

 

[Peio64270]

This is the KMZ part of the flyght log of the concerned flight. What should be straight lines and pure curves show a very hesitating path, both in heading and altitude. I remain surprised that gimbal correctionsfons for the numerous AC pitch changes are rather perfect while corrections for heading deviations are often catastrophic.
Lesson learned : no more Litchi mission with this drone at low altitude, specially by a gusty day.

 

[TrabSeyn]

I've notice a lot more "wind drift" with the recent updates to the Fly app/firmware updates (M2A). That being said any app will not override the forces of nature or physics. Seeing this flight path over a sloping terrain made me think "ridge lift" used by sailplanes. Also the wind speed gradient over ground level, with gusting, could have easily tweaked the flight path. I've run into this when flying hyperlapse with a gentle wind over flat terrain. I'd try recalibrating the gimbal/IMU/compass and see if that improves the situation but being Litchi jerky camera is kinda par for the course.

 

[Peio64270]

I've notice a lot more "wind drift" with the recent updates to the Fly app/firmware updates (M2A). That being said any app will not override the forces of nature or physics. Seeing this flight path over a sloping terrain made me think "ridge lift" used by sailplanes. Also the wind speed gradient over ground level, with gusting, could have easily tweaked the flight path. I've run into this when flying hyperlapse with a gentle wind over flat terrain. I'd try recalibrating the gimbal/IMU/compass and see if that improves the situation but being Litchi jerky camera is kinda par for the course.

Yes, I agree. But the remainig question is "why in these conditions vertical (pitch) movements are well compensated by the the gimbal while horizontal (yaw) movements are not ?"