Here is a video of the first ever Parrot Sequoia NDVI camera stabilized with a H4-3D Zenmuse gimbal mounted on the DJI Matrice 100 (M100). This is part of our turnkey bundle system called "The Agronaut". This system is Map Pilot compatible and includes unlimited agricultural map processing.


The difference between hacked cameras that are purported to be NDVI cameras and a real (calibrated) NDVI camera is that if you make a map of a field in the morning under cloudy light condtions and then again in the afternoon under sunny light conditions, the data will be the same. This makes it so farmers and agronomists can track changes over time and make actual decisions based on the data. Hacked cameras look like they tell you something but artificially stretching data to match a color scheme with non-reporducible results doens't help anyone and just gives the state of the art a bad name.


We look forward to offering the first honest drone-based NDVI system for an affordable price.

Congrats and thanks for the news!

Can you please share the pinout or how you managed the control of the gimbal? This would be of great help to many...


TIA

giocda Posted at 2016-6-14 18:14
Can you please share the pinout or how you managed the control of the gimbal? This would be of great ...

Sorry for the delay... The gimbal is a normal DJI CAN bus. There is no special pinout but we had to pick apart the data and make a custom board. We used the data from the onboard SDK to to feed the Zenmuse H4-3D's CAN port with the signals is needs.

Thank you for sharing. I assumed there was some interfacing going on regarding a custom board. We are working on a dual gimbal setup and have built a board that will switch from the X3/X5 gimbal to a FLIR unit but are looking to build a unit to switch gimbal control. This was all pretty easy and required no real mods via SDK.

If you wish you can contact me privately and we would be willing to share what we have done so far.

I wil add that the have an M-100 that we stripped the N1FC entirely and CNC milled a custom mount for a Px4 to sit in the N1FC stock location and a milled a custom dual gimbal mount that seats on the provided DJI mount - it extends it allowing one gimbal in the stock location and a second in a forward position. Using mounts to make the back gimbal lower and the forward gimbal higher you can see from both when pointing forward. We built custom headers to allow interfacing with the M-100 daughter board and we are using a 32 channel receiver - we are getting top speeds of over 65MPH and it is SO easy to add camera switchers, multiple gimbals and several other features like retractable landing gear. You would be surprised as to how "Factory Made" the unit looks.

We do want to continue the DJI sock mods but the Px4 route, in our opinion, is just as stable, easier to mod and adds an immeasurable amount of expandability. We were even able to clone Guidance with sonar sensors.
Using Qgroundcontrol on an Android (or Surface) allows an interface similar to the DJI experience as in the realtime map, telemetry data, live video, RTH, take-off and on-the-fly waypoint planning.

You may wish to experiment with it.

Thank you again for sharing. I am excited to see if we can get a true dual gimbal setup working on a stock DJI N1FC and thankful you were willing to take the time to share your development.

Kind regards,


Gio

giocda Posted at 2016-7-21 08:37
Thank you for sharing. I assumed there was some interfacing going on regarding a custom board. We ar ...

We have run up to 4 gimbals simultaneously so it can be done. Our solution uses the onboard SDK which needs the N1FC though so it won't likely work with your system.

We will likely be selling out gimbaled Sequoia retrofit kit soon as well.

We  are working on both the N1FC and the Px4 - We are in development stages so we haven't decided. Your input has been VERY helpful and encouraging.

We will look to the SDK to see if we can duplicate how you are achieving this with the onboard SDK.

Thank you again for pointing us un the right direction!

This is a sample of the Sequoia camera being used to make absolute measurements over time. Three visits to the same area on April 1, July 8 and August 12 show how the vegetation has dried out. These layers were all taken under pretty different light conditions and you can see it does a really good job of maintaining constant areas.

https://www.mapsmadeeasy.com/loc ... 841b9c6d5ff9bf08132

RGB and NDVI layers for each date are shown.

The data was take using the Drones Made Easy Agronaut system which is a DJI Matrice 100 with some custom electronics to drive a H4-3D gimbal to stabilize the camera. The custom on board computer also does the data preparation for upload to Maps Made Easy.

hi Team
its very interesting integration of Sequoia to M100, I had M100 planning to integrate with Sequoia can you please suggest any other requirements are needed for the integration of  M100 and Sequoia  multispectral sensor like power supply and connector and Gimbel

fansf0a0effe Posted at 2016-11-14 04:23
hi Team
its very interesting integration of Sequoia to M100, I had M100 planning to integrate with  ...

We designed a custom power supply/computer module and flex cable to be able to do this. The Sequoia is a nice camera but the RGB images are all but useless if the camera isn't stabilized. In addition to setting up the camera for use with Map Pilot the computer module processes the Sequoia's multispectral data into a useful format.

MapsMadeEasy Posted at 2016-11-14 22:10
We designed a custom power supply/computer module and flex cable to be able to do this. The Sequoi ...

can you share the custom power supply/computer module and flex cable details and extra details about mounting the sensor and safety precautions while connecting the M100 and Sequoia

fansf0a0effe Posted at 2016-11-15 02:51
can you share the custom power supply/computer module and flex cable details and extra details abo ...

The Agronaut system is for sale on our website: https://www.dronesmadeeasy.com/M ... agronaut_bundle.htm

MapsMadeEasy Posted at 2016-11-15 20:03
The Agronaut system is for sale on our website: https://www.dronesmadeeasy.com/MAG100-Agronaut-Par ...

Thanks for sharing the details can you provide only the Sequoia Multispectral Sensor, Gimbal, interfacing circuit and required applications for M100, because we already have M100 Drone.