My team and I launch and retrieve our Matrice 200 from a boat for marine biology research.  When we purchased the system, our reseller told us that we could use the Dynamic Home Point function to continually update the home point to the control station's location, so that in the event of lost link or other event triggering return to home (RTH), the unit would return to the boat, not the location that we took off from (which could be several miles away from us).   To our great disappointment, we discovered when we started field work that DJI has not implemented Dynamic Home Point for its Pro-series drones.  Biizarrely, it has only set it up to work on its less-expensive units.   See https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=178237 for more information.

One can reset home point manually when flying, but doing so  takes a number of steps that require the pilot to look away from the drone at the controller several times and is quite distracting.  It's also another thing to remember---and there is already a lot going on when one is flying a drone from a boat, keeping over a moving target, adjusting camera settings, etc. .   After a worrisome incident last summer when we had to quickly cancel a battery-triggered automatic RTH, we now try to manually update home point every minute, but it's not a great work-around.


My question to the forum is whether anyone has come up with a better work-around , perhaps involving reprogramming controller buttons (we use the Cendence controller) to manually update home point with a single button press?  And my question to DJI, which I've asked a number of times already, is does the company plan to implement Dynamic Home Point for it's professional drones, and if so when can we expect that to occur?

Maybe with GPS module which works with Cendence: https://store.dji.com/product/in ... r-remote-controller ? though probably "not supported" I wonder if this would work
https://forum.dji.com/thread-127627-1-1.html
Good Luck

Thanks Regijean   I appreciate the suggestion, but I know that our  ground controller (Cedence) is getting a GPS fix from the CyrstalSky unit that we use, because when we go through the manual steps to reset home point it sets it to the controller's position, not the drone's position.  So all the pieces are there to implement automatic Dynamic Home Point resetting for the Matrice 200, DJI just hasn't done it.  Unfortunately, this is typical of DJI's pro series.  The company simply doesn't invest in software to properly take advantage of the expensive hardware the company builds into the series.  

In any case, am still hopeful someone out there has come up with a creative way to, at the least, reduce the manual resetting of home point a one-button operation.

The above post seems to have been removed from the Forum---can find it via Google but not by searching DJI's forum pages. Am hoping this will restore it---and that someone will have some ideas on this topic.

Cori Posted at 5-13 11:19
Thanks Regijean   I appreciate the suggestion, but I know that our  ground controller (Cedence) is getting a GPS fix from the CyrstalSky unit that we use, because when we go through the manual steps to reset home point it sets it to the controller's position, not the drone's position.  So all the pieces are there to implement automatic Dynamic Home Point resetting for the Matrice 200, DJI just hasn't done it.  Unfortunately, this is typical of DJI's pro series.  The company simply doesn't invest in software to properly take advantage of the expensive hardware the company builds into the series.  

In any case, am still hopeful someone out there has come up with a creative way to, at the least, reduce the manual resetting of home point a one-button operation.

Hi,

i think you are wrong when you think you can get dynamic homepoint through the crystalsky gps - I am not saying it will work on matrice if you use one but with our inspire 2 we need the extra gps module to activate dynamic home point also the crystal sky has a gps build in .... hope this helps a little

Flo the Pirate Posted at 5-27 05:28
Hi,

i think you are wrong when you think you can get dynamic homepoint through the crystalsky gps - I am not saying it will work on matrice if you use one but with our inspire 2 we need the extra gps module to activate dynamic home point also the crystal sky has a gps build in .... hope this helps a little

Many thanks Flo, and Regijean too.  I've just  ordered the Inspire 2  GPS Module Regijean suggested...will let you know how it goes.

Cori Posted at 6-2 23:12
Many thanks Flo, and Regijean too.  I've just  ordered the Inspire 2  GPS Module Regijean suggested...will let you know how it goes.

Hi All

Well, I ordered the Inspire 2 GPS Module and no joy....still no dynamic home point with my Matrice 200.  When I plug the module into my Cendence controller, I don't get any feedback on my screen that controller recognizes it and is using its position fix.  But I know it is, because if I turn off the GPS in my Crystal Sky display, I can't manually reset home point---whereas the minute I plug the GSP module in to the controller, I can reset home point manually.  No Dynamic Home Point option appears on my screen.

Frustrating, to say the least.  I just wish DJI would weigh in and let me know if it has plans to implement DHP for the Matrice...and if doesn't, if it will at least make it possible to reset it manually with one of the many unassigned buttons on the Cendence controller.

Cori Posted at 6-9 19:11
Hi All

Well, I ordered the Inspire 2 GPS Module and no joy....still no dynamic home point with my Matrice 200.  When I plug the module into my Cendence controller, I don't get any feedback on my screen that controller recognizes it and is using its position fix.  But I know it is, because if I turn off the GPS in my Crystal Sky display, I can't manually reset home point---whereas the minute I plug the GSP module in to the controller, I can reset home point manually.  No Dynamic Home Point option appears on my screen.

On further experimenting, it turns out the Cendence controller will recognize the GPS module if I use my cell phone or tablet to run DJI Go4, but when I have the Crystal Sky unit mounted on the controller, it won't recognize it, and continues to try to use the anemic GPS receiver in the Crystal Sky.  THis is the case even if I go into Crystal Sky settings and turn it's GPS off.  In neither case, however (Crystal Sky or tablet running DJI Go4), the Dynamic Home Point Window doesn't come up with the Matrice 200.  

I've run out of options for getting Dynamic Home Point working on the Matrice 200 I think and DJI support has been anything but supportive.  Frustrating.

Thanks for sharing.