I have been flying the Phantom 2 Vision plus almost every day since i purchased it this Christams.  I believe that DJI urgently needs to update its software to allow for Follow Me mode and sell an upgrade kit to add the feature of Obstacle avoidance.  Without these simple changes and ad-ons, it will lose most of its current market to the new Plexidrone. This new model will come with obstacle avoidance and follow me mode as a standard and for a lower cost than the Phantom.  What do you think?

I feel obstacle avoidance should be actively controlled by the pilot. Yes it is a nice feature to have, but a lot of people will depend on it for their flying and when it has failures, than we will have the local community complaining about us flying around their homes and buildings. As long as DJI is having issues with the Phantom, I myself DO NOT want to depend on a DJI avoidance system.

I'd love the follow me feature. The obstacle avoidance would be usefull in fail safe mode.

I love it when people say that a new unreleased product like the Plexidrone, will cause DJI to lose its lead in the market.
$1,000 for the good version of the Plexidrone but that does not buy you one it just puts you on the list as the small print at the bottom of the page says "By clicking 'Continue', you acknowledge that you understand that you are contributing to a work-in-progress and not making a direct purchase."
It may come out in April 2015 or it may not, and there Is no guarantee that any of the advertised features will be included in the final product.

Oh yeah, I took a hard look at the Plexidrone myself.  Out of six projects I've funded on both Indiegogo and Kickstarter (including a newfangled whiz-bang multicopter) not a one has ever met it's "estimated delivery date".  I've actually gotten delivery on two of the six products but the rest are way, way behind.

I believe that old saying "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" is apropos to this situation.  I've been flying 4 Phantoms while occasionally beating the bush.

The features would be nice, but I'm thinking that getting them at a lower cost is a bit of a stretch.

momochi Posted at 2015-1-12 04:20
I feel obstacle avoidance should be actively controlled by the pilot. Yes it is a nice feature to ha ...

momochi, you have a pilot license, don't you?
I assume you can explain to others that there's a good reason why the private pilot license comes before instrument rating.

To begin with, I think the quad operators should be first able to fly visual and not depending on "advanced features". All extra features are nice, but until the technology is super reliable the responsability for failures stay with the quad operator. I guess, right now, "follow me" will be nice to have as long as the person sending the quad in the air understands and accepts the responsability for the potential accidents.

Obstacle avoidance doesn't seem very complicated to me, especially for forward flying.
Follow me is a bit more difficult to achieve, but it will come.

Personally I'd like to see first a fix from DJI preventing those flyaways when there are GPS errors... I don't think obstacle avoidance is possible only with software changes in Phantoms (and not even Inspires). It will require longer range ultrasound / small radar sensors.

Total autonomous UAVs will come in few years... UAV industry is in its infancy and, let's say, it's still crawling.
I actually challenge you to predict how the UAVs will look 5 years from now

Plexidrone is vaporware. Phantom is here and now. It has its weak points, but it's the best game in town for now and the foreseeable future.

MacCool Posted at 2015-1-12 11:30
Plexidrone is vaporware. Phantom is here and now. It has its weak points, but it's the best game in  ...

I may argue that Inspire is the "best game in town" Anyway, Phantom is probably still the best one for its price range.

ciprianboboc@gm Posted at 2015-1-12 12:07
I may argue that Inspire is the "best game in town"  Anyway, Phantom is probably still the best  ...

From what I read, the Inspire is near-vaporware, and there appear to be some significant teething problems in the ones that have trickled into consumer hands. I agree it has a good chance of someday being a clear winner, but too soon to tell. In the consumer-level arena, I'll be interested to see what GoPro brings to the market, speaking of vaporware, and whether or not a US company known for excellent hardware and excellent customer service can overcome DJIs lead in the consumer drone market.

Follow-me mode...nice idea but I think the last thing we need is more software complexity in GPS mode. It can be wonky enough as it is. I'd like to see DJI make RTH more reliable and stop the flyaways before adding in yet another GPS doo-dad.

Obstacle-avoidance...I'm too old-school an R/C pilot. Obstacle avoidance is my responsibility. And I'd like to see DJI concentrate on fixing the hardware systems they currently use before adding in another.

For me, Follow me, orbit and stay in front of me modes would be great in the right circumstances and in the right areas.  I'd love to take my Phantom skiing but leaving it at home cos my skiing and flying are equally bad so doing both at same time would be a recipe for trouble.  I guess it would be the visions that get this type of functionality, as the link to gps in phone would provide the "target"? since the non visions don't have this the UAV would not know where you are?

Peter.

Naturally, the AMA (and therefore the FAA) have said that you can't fly your R/C craft without seeing it. Needs to be in "line of sight". Skiing down the slopes with a drone autonomously following you is not something that is likely to be allowed under the current rules.

Currently, Phantoms in GPS mode are not able to fly within 5 miles of some US airports, so we know that DJI is at least giving lip service to FAA rules. No doubt they will place other restrictions, or at least not implement certain features like "orbit" or "follow me", according the those same sets of rules.

I don't see these as likely-to-be-implemented software features

I have belonged to the Academy of Model Aeronautics the AMA that MacCool is referring to for 42 years. The concern is that improper use will cause severe restrictions to be placed on our hobbiy. Model airplanes really have to be flown line of sight as well as helicopters

Great idea, I will email Boeing and ask how to fit their in flight obstacle avoidance system to my Phantom...
How hard can it be ?

Hey Guys, just wanted to chime in. I am currently working on a project to add "Follow Me" functionality to the DJI Phantom. I just set up a blog and will start updating it with the progress. If you want to follow along with my progress and product test videos feel free to visit www.followmephantom.com . With the current progress, I anticipate having a version 1 out early this summer that will allow a user to enter parameters like follow distance, altitude and position (degrees from subject's heading). It won't have obstacle avoidance and the user will definitely need to make sure there are no obstacles in the range of their entered parameters, but it will be great new functionality for the phantom and will be an easy download from the iOS app store.

Happy flying guys!

A GPS based follow me feature would be nice in certain areas, but I can see it easily going bad. Especially because a LOT of people have a very limited understanding of how GPS works. Many people seem to think that GPS is basically infallible and will work in all areas and circumstances. Anyone who's actually used  it extensively knows otherwise. I couldn't tell you how many times I've looked at my GPS position on my phone only to find that it is off by 75 feet or more. Now, this isn't a big problem if I'm just trying to figure out where I am on a map. But, for a drone that's trying to follow your position this could be disastrous. Yeah sure, if you're in an open field and you have your phone strapped to your upper arm with the GPS antenna facing out, it'll probably work great. Now, try that in a deep valley or put your phone in your pants pocket (maybe even with the GPS antenna facing inward) and there's going to be a problem.

I'm not saying that follow me based on GPS is a feature that shouldn't be developed, but the developers really need to make sure that their users are aware of it's limitations. This is something I don't see happening a lot. Take the Plexidrone for example. From their website, in answer to, "How does GPS follow me work?" we get the following answer,

"GPS Follow Me works using a smartphone or tablet running iOS, Android, or Windows. Simply press the “Follow Me” button, and our systems does the rest. You can also specify, follow behind, in-front, above, left, and right."

Wow, simply press the magic button and it'll just work. No mention of needing an unobstructed view of the sky or warnings about putting your phone in your pants pocket. What could possibly go wrong?

jmtw000 Posted at 2015-3-10 21:51
A GPS based follow me feature would be nice in certain areas, but I can see it easily going bad. Esp ...

This is good information and all things that I am currently fighting with. Even at it's best, Gps is usually only accurate to within a couple meters. Luckily, I can detect the accuracy on the iOS device and only allow operation when accuracy is acceptable. Which I'm finding in many cases it is (I.E - phone mounted on a bike mount). It's going to be a really fun and useful feature for everything from novelty/fun purposes to replacing your go-pro hard mounts while doing extreme sports. I'm also experimenting with other ways of detecting distance using shape recognition and getting the focal length to the shape. There are many ways to augment the data to be better. I look forward to getting a version 1 out and getting user feedback.

along with follow me, I would like to have te ability to do missions but with camera movements too.
AND also POI filming.