Hey,
Prompted by Jerrys request for comments on this app, here we go;
A truly wonderful addition for any DJI Phantom V2+ pilot who wants solid Autopilot functions for their bird. The documentation (mainly the “Flight School” information) is well written and very thorough as long as you take your time to read & understand the different modes available. They suggest running thru the different modes in order as they are progressively "more advanced".
Starting at the beginning;
There are two modes under "human flight control" - "Black Box" & "Focus".
Black Box is certainly the place to start to gain some confidence in what it's doing. Which is "simply" displaying the telemetry - Battery level, altitude, distance, speed & heading. It also shows # of sats, but that's a little small and will be changed in an upcoming release - I really like to be able to quickly confirm the # of sats she's seeing, and while it's there, it's in a tiny font. [The same applies to heading, and I'm hopeful this "status" screen will get a slightly different layout soon.] Unfortunately, it cannot display "space left on SD card" and "RE battery level" due to a bug in the DJI SDK.
Next up is "Gimbal control". You're still flying the bird, but it will do it's best to keep the camera pointed at "you" (The iPhone/iPad running the app.) - You remain responsible for getting it pointed at you, but if you can do that the camera will tilt further down as you fly closer to overhead. Then, as it passes, yaw the bird 180 degrees and it will tilt towards horizontal as it goes away. Works flawlessly.
Next up is "Computer flight control", and here we have three modes:
1. "Hover" - Specify the altitude for the hover and Autopilot takes control of yaw to keep it pointing at you. Very nice, and again works great. 2. "Follow" - Specify the bearing angle (either absolute or course), altitude & distance and she'll follow you. One note here is that due to the way the iPhone works your "phone" must be moving at more than 3mph or the bird will drift around as the data from the phone is "unreliable" at such low speeds. I haven't tested this mode as I haven't been moving at more than 3mph when using the app! I'm hoping to hijack a golf cart "soon" to test this mode. 3. "Orbit" - This is the mode that really attracted me to this app. Again, specify altitude, distance (the radius) and leading angle relative to the phone. The bird will then orbit around "you" (or whoever has the phone running the app) at the specified alt & distance. The default lead angle is 5degs, which seemed to result in a pretty slow orbit. Next flight I uppped it to 15degs and it was going too fast for me! 10degs seemed about right for my (100/150ft) radius. I need to do some more testing on the relationship between radius & lead angle, but again, it worked flawlessly keeping "me" in the middle of the frame. Very, very, nice IMO.
Finally, it offers "Combined flight control", two modes:
1. "Intercept" - Paraphrasing their Flight School; "Point your iOS device in any direction as if it were a laser pointer. The bird will intersect the imaginary laser created by your device." Specify min altitude (so it will fly above your laser if you point too low), direct distance (how far along the laser to the intercept point) and whether you want it track subsequent movements. Note that you can pause at any time. I haven't tested this mode yet, but am thinking it should be a great way to get the bird to wherever you want - Kind of an "advanced" orbit function where you can specify where she goes at any time.
2. "Mimic" - Another I haven't yet tested. Again, from the flight school; "Tilt your iOS device in any direction. The bird will mimic the tilting motion of the iOS device to the directed pitch & roll. The yaw strategy determines if it will match your iOS devices heading or point at your iOS device." Another mode that I think will be very useful in specific circumstances that I haven't thought of yet......
In summary, I've found this app to be doing *exactly* what it claims without any glitches at all. It has simply done what I asked it to.
Downsides? None that I've found so far - it just flat out works. It would be nice if it allowed me to initiate the compass dance prior to flight as the DJI Vision app does - I hate the idea of toggling switches like a lunatic and always initiate the dance from the DJI app.
No "Ground Station" style mission planning. If you want that, the DJI app is (currently) the way to go - Although I don't like that I can't plan (and save) missions ahead of time. I guess the developer is thinking "why duplicate the work DJI have already done?" Only that I'd prefer to use just one app rather than starting one (for the compass dance) then shut that down and start Autopilot.
All in all, a *very* satisifed customer that hasn't experienced any problems with it.
HTH, Cheers, Ian
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