Well, I'm impressed!
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That same YouTube Channel posted another video where he takes off deep inside what seems to be an underground garage, goes out flying in the city, descends to like 20 feet above ground somewhere far away, in between a bunch of buildings, and initiates RTH. The 3S then comes all the way back even though as soon as it enters the garage, GPS goes to 0 and it still needs to fly a few more minutes to get to the home point! Really incredible!
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waynorth
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He uses a 4G connection in both of these videos, but it is impressive anyway.
I would hope it gets smarter than that. If you fly for 20 minutes and you only have 5 minutes of battery left, you cannot simply retrace your steps so I hoping the improvements this new type of smart return would be able to adjust for battery strength as well as wind conditions, objects that move, and other unexpected situations. If a pilot can fly the drone home, the perfect RTH process can do it to...without a pilot.
And what if it cannot make it home; I would like to see the drone able to choose an emergency landing spot suitable for easy retrieval instead of landing on the freeway or on the roof of a building. This is where AI RTH comes in.
We have a long way to go but just from what I am seeing in the video comes a long way. I can't tell you how many times drones are lost because they fail to negotiate obstacles properly or overhead during the now-obsolete RTH methods. Imagine if you had a one-hour battery and you lost the signal behind a maze of complex buildings after just 10 minutes at night and the drone knew it could choose (you could choose) to clear the downtown area of all buildings first and RTH directly in the clear taking 20 minutes to do so but it's not the most efficient path but the safest because it's dark.
Yes indeed! My post wasn’t about the signal, just about the new RTH capabilities.
However, regarding the signal, you can see that he has a decent RC connection for most of the flight, despite being, I assume, in an underground garage!
Rchawks
Well-Known Member
Every time I seen the green beam showing the way home I started laughing out loud. You're right I'm impressed.
Very impressive.
Does it rely on having a 4G or mobile connection inside?
Is it getting the mobile data connection through the controller or it has a 4G modem on the aircraft?
What would it have done if it encountered cars or pedestrians in that tunnel?
Public garages wouldn't allow flying inside probably?
Nor flying within a city with high rise buildings potentially blocking GPS?
The Air 3/Air 3S has a spot on the top underneath a cover where you can install a special DJI cellular dongle and insert a SIM card inside. The drone itself connects to a cellular network. If your RC doesn’t have Wi-Fi, it needs another, separate, cellular dongle to connect to the USB-C of the RC. These are not available in the US.
Anytime you see the RC single drop completely in the video, the drone is relying solely on the cellular connection for sending telemetry and video data and receiving commands from the RC.
The RC signal and the cellular 4G single each have their own separate signal bars on the top right corner.
OK, so it has to be connected to some data stream, either via the controller or directly, in order to navigate, especially if it loses GPS once it enters the building?
Obviously impressive that you could get a strong signal in the garage. In some cities, I've seen subways with strong mobile network signals but it's not universal.
Really surprised that there's good 4G signal in the garage and that the radio connection between the drone and the controller was strong.
Hell, even flying in the middle of all those high rise buildings, I'm not sure there wouldn't be signal strength problems, since the aircraft will go around the corner and no longer have VLOS.
I know with my M2P, I'd at least get warnings about low signal strength and probably warn you to have the drone RTH.
But the transmission system is several generations older than O4.
LOL I mean I think that’s because that goes without saying in this case. It is very very very clear it is BVLOSCame for the BVLOS comments. Was disappointed...
This video is causing a lot of misunderstanding. The RTH or “positioning” has nothing whatsoever to do with the 4G signal. This can be done without 4G at all.
No. Mapping is done completely in the drone. It does not need any connection to anything in order to RTH. It would work in the same exact way with only the RC2 and no 4G connection and even if the drone disconnected from the RC entirely, and had no connection to anything. It would still Smart RTH to home point.
Flight path recording and 3D mapping technology.
The pilot having the 4G dongle in the video is causing a lot of confusion, making viewers believe it is a requirement for Smart RTH. It is not.
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