Waypoint help

Coyyote · Dec 1, 2017

Howdy new to drones and the forum. On our ranch we have special operations military come to take advanced precision shooting. Targets are steel and are placed up the mountains quite a distance away. In order to gain more "real time" feedback for the troops I got the idea of using a drone to fly up take a picture of several targets using waypoints and returning for target analysis. Saves a 90-150 minute hike. But of course nothing is as simple as it seems. I can manually accomplish this but the devil is in the automation.

Tried DJI to set waypoints but it would nto let me set one very close to the target as I kept getting a warning about proximity. So I need to figure out how to get fairly close and pause for a picture (targets are 18" round steel) or have a way to pause, hover and zoom camera then procede to next waypoint.

ie fly to target 1, pause, let me focus and take pic, fly target 2, etc. Hopefully store all pics directly on iPhone rather than sim card.

I have been using DJIGO 4. AIrnest autopilot will not link to my Mavic Pro. Am considering trying Lichi today.

So I am open to any suggestions as to how to accomplish this task efficiently. Thank you in advance for any help you can send a novice.

Mossiback · Dec 1, 2017

Litchi might allow you to do that. It has the feature set you need. The problem is that you mentioned that it is "up the mountains quite a distance away" and over an hour hike. Because of this, you will probably run into a max height, RC connection, and battery issue. In Litchi, when you lose connection with the RC on a Waypoint mission the MP will continue the mission to the point of battery exhaustion. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can correct me. In any case, if the MP is forced to land due to battery life and you do not have connection to the RC, I do not know how you will find it short of wandering the route with the RC and hope the MC hasn't died completely and will connect to reveal it's location.

I think for this to work with any program, your starting point will need to get closer to your furthest point on the mission.

Coyyote · Dec 1, 2017

Thanks for the reply. Some things to consider for sure. One thing I do not fully understand is the altitude of the flight. If I take off at home (5800 ft) and have the altitude for the flight set at say 200 feet, when the drone flys up the mountain and reaches 6000 feet will it crash or at that point is it at the 200 feet above the terrain at 6200 feet?

kidroc · Dec 1, 2017

yes it will crash.. but litchi will let you set relative to ground way points so it will stay at the height. pretty cool feature really.

Mossiback · Dec 1, 2017

The height is set at zero at the start point. When you reach the max height setting it just will not go higher. If you are flying without anti-collision sensors on or not facing forwards, it will not recognize the rise in terrain and crash. The MP does not recognize actual altitude or height over terrain. You can launch from the top of a hill and go down and the height will show in negative numbers.

Mossiback · Dec 1, 2017

I have not tried this in Litchi, but in Go 4 you can override the 400 foot setting up to 1640 feet (500 meters). In the USA, the FAA wants you to be within 400 feet of the ground. Since the MP does not take terrain into consideration while going up a hill you can exceed the 400 foot height of the home point while staying below 400 feet of the ground.

Mossiback · Dec 1, 2017

There is a Litchi manual here: Litchi for iOS February 2017.pdf. It is from the Litchi web site (Help - Litchi). It also lists an Android version but the description does not explicitly mention the Mavic. It does show that you can set a waypoint relative the ground: "GROUND If you change the parameter to GROUND, the altitude assigned to each waypoint will be adjusted to maintain the selected altitude above ground level at each waypoint location. Litchi is able to make these adjustments by using Google terrain mapping elevation data. If you use this feature, keep in mind that obstacles may be higher than Google mapped terrain elevations."

It looks like this may work for you but only after very careful planning. I still think you will run into distance/time problems.