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Autonomous mission

dataengine66

Active Member
Join
Feb 5, 2019
Messages
25
Age
57
Using Litchi, how were you able to "let go" and let the spark do an autonomous mission? Do you trust it to come back?
 
Like Mark says, baby steps. I tried it out first time round the edges of a sports field, moved on once I was happy with the performance. But I understand apprehension with autonomous missions. For me, the most apprehensive I was was when I sent Sparky off on a hyperlapse mission going up to maximum height, at night AND over water! He came back fine and got the material I wanted.
 
That trip to the gas station sure looked long. Im in Europe and they crippled the spark in the last software update. Its no konger possible to fly in FCCMode.
 
That trip to the gas station sure looked long. Im in Europe and they crippled the spark in the last software update. Its no konger possible to fly in FCCMode.

That was a home made craft 17km and about 1.5km to go before the fail.
I carefully followed the craft all that way to the crash site.
 
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I'm specifically talking about the spark. I'm talking to anyone who would let this baby drone out of their sight. does it seem to accomplish missions?
 
Litchi work well with Spark. Most problems result from operators mistakes.
Check your mission thoroughly. Check motors and propellers. Check signal, GPS, SD card and battery volt.
Make sure of your home point.
Set your Fn but to takeoff.
Never panic .
 
I'm specifically talking about the spark. I'm talking to anyone who would let this baby drone out of their sight. does it seem to accomplish missions?

Yes, out of sight and lost the signal too for about 20+ seconds, when it was 1200 meters away across dense residential areas. Still, the Spark finish the mission to the last waypoint.

I'm using DJI Go MOD + DJI Mission.
 
This video was taken this week with my Spark. Sped up 5x for most of it. It's the village of Fontmell Magna, Dorset, England. I was working there this week so had a play. Leap of faith really, as I knew I'd lose contact very fast.

I used Litchi and preplanned the flight at home. Checked on Google Earth that it was high enough to miss everything by exporting 3D KML option. I lost communication very quickly and spent best part of 10 minutes hoping Sparky was OK. It was a great feeling seeing him back in communication and flying towards me to land :) The run was just over 1.5 miles and was 0.4 miles away from me at the furthest point. I did get a bit of a wind gust causing a wobble on the video towards the end, but perfect otherwise.

Fontmell Magna

The key I think is to pre plan the mission. Check on Google Earth that it's high enough, and if you are on Windows you can also use VLM to check the flight height and even run a virtual mission to simulate the footage you will get to a reasonably useful degree.
 
This video was taken this week with my Spark. Sped up 5x for most of it. It's the village of Fontmell Magna, Dorset, England. I was working there this week so had a play. Leap of faith really, as I knew I'd lose contact very fast.

I used Litchi and preplanned the flight at home. Checked on Google Earth that it was high enough to miss everything by exporting 3D KML option. I lost communication very quickly and spent best part of 10 minutes hoping Sparky was OK. It was a great feeling seeing him back in communication and flying towards me to land :) The run was just over 1.5 miles and was 0.4 miles away from me at the furthest point. I did get a bit of a wind gust causing a wobble on the video towards the end, but perfect otherwise.

Fontmell Magna

The key I think is to pre plan the mission. Check on Google Earth that it's high enough, and if you are on Windows you can also use VLM to check the flight height and even run a virtual mission to simulate the footage you will get to a reasonably useful degree.

I can imagine those minutes of waiting to regain your signal. Alas, the lack of an actual 3rd gimbal axis on Spark really shows here. I wonder though if the same route is flown on a drone with 3-axis gimbal, like say Mavic Air, will the result be better....
 
I remember my first loss of signal mission.
It was with a home made quad so anything could have gone wrong.
A program called Mission Planner made it even more nerve racking because
it would call out "Warning no data for XX seconds." every 5 seconds.
That first one was 100 seconds but seemed an eternity.
I would post the video and telemetry overlay but with a home made unit, the sports cam used recorded the prop sound.
When I mixed in post, I had the props too loud.

Plus, it was before I found out I could program it to go 44.7mph (2000cm/s)
I flew at the default 6mph (250cm/s)
Whole flight is 12 minutes.
 
I can imagine those minutes of waiting to regain your signal. Alas, the lack of an actual 3rd gimbal axis on Spark really shows here. I wonder though if the same route is flown on a drone with 3-axis gimbal, like say Mavic Air, will the result be better....

I'm saving up for one :)
 
I did tons of litchi missions with my older phantom 3, I'm more hesistant with the spark due to lower battery life. (the spark however is 100% a better drone than the phantom)
Here is an example of litchi waypoint mission with the spark with near collision due to not adjust altitude relative to ground.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="
" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

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