What can Active Track track?

[Saukki]

Hi!

I've been flying Mavic Air 1 for years. I mainly use it to track a velomobile. It works ok. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. (Before Mavic Air I had Parrot Bebop and it had excelent follow me function, so moving to Mavic Air made the experience worse). But I would like to upgrade to a newer drone. I bought Mini 3 Pro, because of it's small and compact size and it suppousedly has better active track. But turns out it's actually way worse than the original Mavic Air.

First of all most of the time it doesn't recognise my velomobile as a vehicle so it just refuses to track. If I position the drone to the side of the velomobile then it might think it's a car and I can activate the active track. When the velomobile starts to move, the drone just goes crazy. It doesn't know what it is looking at. It tries to follow the velomobile for a while but it just can't figure out should it go closer or futher away from the object or should it go left or right. It's just all over the place until it decides it's not a car and says "object lost" or the velomobile goes outside of the frame.

This is just stupid. There's this only orange thing in miles and it just can't track it. At least the object isn't blending in the backround. (see the attached photo)

Now can you tell me if there's something I can do to make Mini 3 Pro to track this thing on the photo? Or can you point me to some other drone which can do it? (I would like to get the Skydio 2, but it's not available here in Finland)

Thanks for help!

-Saukki

 

[1TenaciousG]

I've owned both Drones and I can honestly say that my Mini 3 Pro has excellent tracking abilities.
I agree that the Original Mavic Air had some issues with its tracking but the Mini 3 Pro does not.
You may have received a faulty Drone.
Also, unless you ONLY plan to track things, I wouldn't worry about the Skydio Drones.
While they track things, almost flawlessly, they don't do much more than that, very well.

 

[Saukki]

When I first tested the Mini 3 Pro Active Track by tracking a human (me), it did work flawlesly and I was very happy with it. So I was very dissapointed when I found out it doesn’t recognise a velomobile as a trackable object. And because that is the thing I’m going to use the drone 95% of the time, it’s basically useless to me.

 

[1TenaciousG]

When I first tested the Mini 3 Pro Active Track by tracking a human (me), it did work flawlesly and I was very happy with it. So I was very dissapointed when I found out it doesn’t recognise a velomobile as a trackable object. And because that is the thing I’m going to use the drone 95% of the time, it’s basically useless to me.

Gotcha.
What, exactly, is a Velomobile?
Just curious.

 

[1TenaciousG]

I'm curious as to why it wouldn't be able to track that vehicle. My M3P can track everything from cars and people, to even tracking my dog, without fail.
It usually won't lose the lock-on, even when the Subject goes behind trees, or other obstacles, due to its Predictive Tracking abilities.
It sounds like the unit you received may be faulty. I would try sending it in for diagnostics, before I'd give up on it, completely.
I hope it all works out well, for you.

 

[Saukki]

Gotcha.
What, exactly, is a Velomobile?
Just curious.

The thing in the photo at the first message is a velomobile. It’s basically a human powered vehicle. If you want to know more, you can for example search ”the velomobile channel” from youtube.

 

[1TenaciousG]

The thing in the photo at the first message is a velomobile. It’s basically a human powered vehicle. If you want to know more, you can for example search ”the velomobile channel” from youtube.

 

[Droning on and on...]

I wouldn't track that thing either.

 

[Bob in Savannah]

My Mavic 3 tracks a car perfectly so I would think a Mini 3 pro would do the same. Your "velomobile" is the same as a bike or a car as far as the Mavic is concerned.

 

[tribar]

Before Mavic Air I had Parrot Bebop and it had excelent follow me function

Active Track uses the main camera to track an object.

Follow Me uses the GPS location of the connected device or smart controller to follow an object.

The Mavic Pro was the last DJI drone to support Follow Me in the official DJI app (DJI GO 4).

The Litchi app still has the Follow mode (GPS) and will work with the Mavic Air (and be available for the Mini 3 Pro in the near future).

Litchi for DJI Drones

Litchi for DJI Drones on Android and iOS

flylitchi.com

FOLLOW Mode in Litchi

Your smart device needs to have Location Services turned On. (iPads without cellular do NOT have a build-in GPS receiver and therefore will NOT work) First of all check if the Displayed Accuracy is LESS than your set “Minimum Location Accuracy” in AIRCRAFT-Settings, otherwise Follow will NOT...

forum.flylitchi.com

 

[JDubyaM]

Curious if @Saukki had sent his Mini3 Pro in for evaluation of the Active Track system? Mine worked fine when I first tested it on pedestrians, but lately trying to track dirtbikes is a joke. I got the " green +" locked on the subject hit record and told the rider to take off slowly. He did so, but the drone followed him in Trace mode for about 10' from an altitude of about 30' and then just stopped. Repeated the process, same result. I assured the lens was clean, software updated, what am I missing?

 

[ip_droning]

I got the " green +" locked on the subject hit record and told the rider to take off slowly. He did so, but the drone followed him in Trace mode for about 10' from an altitude of about 30' and then just stopped

same story with my Air 2 trying to track a (white, so pretty contrast agaist grass) dog.

It complains that it can only track people and cars - what does it recognise as a car ? Would a truck count ? what about a farm tractor with attached machinery ? ride-on mower ? quad bike ?

 

[hansenn]

basically active track only follows cars, persons and boats. that velobike looks pretty much like a car so it should be no problem. Maybe you can try various angles and/or distances when selecting the velobike?