Geebax
Captain
Australia
Offline
|
1) Weak GPS Signal : I was in a fairly open area, and the GPS satellites should be good (i had between 9 to 12 satellites), but yet it showed me this warning. Why is this so?
OK, I will give this a go. If you are examing the facade of the building, and it is quite tall, then it will screen approximately half the sky from the GPS satellites, particularly if you are close to the building. This is common, and is often called the 'urban canyon effect'. Another way of putting this is that the aircraft needs a half-sphere of visible sky to geet a good GPS solution, but up close to a tall building, it will only see a quarter of a sphere at best.
One possible solution might be to use a P4RTK aircraft, where there is a separate reference transmitter nearby. The P4RTK guys might better advise you on this, but otherwise there is no way to improve the GPS satellite reception.
2) Weak RC Transmission Signal : I keep losing and intermittently regaining the RC transmission signal even though the drone was less than 1km away from the transmitter. Why is this so?
Without knowing where you are located at the time, while controlling the aircraft, this is hard to diagnose. But if you are at the base of the building and the aircraft is mostly directly above you, then you are in the wrst possible position to get strong control signals. You need to pay attention to the position of the antennas on the RC unit, pointing the flat side towards the aircraft. However the antennba on the aircraft itself is in the legs, and cannot be point very well towards the RC unit, and there is the source of the problem. There are various after-market devices designed to improve the transmission/reception of signals, but you still have the issue of the aircraft antennas not being in the correct position. The only suggestion I can make is to position yourself a bit further away from the building, perhaps even on an upper level floor of a building adjacent.
One other point, while doing this kind of work, NEVER fly the aircraft around the side or the back side of the building. If you do so, it will lose signal and try to return home THROUGH the building. Always keep the aircraft in sight.
3) Very Strong Winds : My P4 Pro was blown around like a leaf; the weather forecast in the area stated winds were around 20mph and gusting to 25mph. I thought the drone would be able to handle it, but it was apparent that it couldnt.
Weather forecasts should be treated as a guide only, and not absolute. In addition, the winds in a canyon of high rise buildings will bear no resemblence to the forecast anyway, and can be completely different around each building. Also, winds at higher altitudes can be quite strong compered to ground level. The only suggestion I have here is that the P4 aircraft are quite good performers in stronger winds, so you might have to choose your days more carefully.
4) Is anyone using any software for facade and building inspection that works very well for you? At this point, any form of help with be useful for me to focus more on the quality of the pictures taken rather than having to fight with the elements and taking pictures at the same time.
As far as I am aware, there is no software designed for this task, other members may know different. If you need to concentrate on the pictures and not the flying, then perhaps a different aircraft is the answer. You could try a DJI Inspire for the task, as it can be operated by two people, one flying and the other operating the camera. Maybe hire one to see if it works any better for you.
Others may question whether what you propose to do is a safe procedure. One of the most common rules of flying drones is not to fly them over people, and I imagine it would be difficult to avoid doing so in these circumstances.
|
|