Litchi wapoint missions

[crunchies]

Gday all.

I am flying an I1v2 and currently using Litchi to carry out video surveys of long distances following tracks and coastal areas. I have encountered the notification of TWO WAYPOINTS ARE TOO FAR APART, this notification apparently relates for the max diszzztance from the first point to the last point.
There is a max radius of 2000m apparently, so all the flights I plan have to be about 1900m.
When these flights are flown i am actually following the I1 in either the passanger seat of car or in a boat and maintain line of sight

Is there any way of getting aound the distance restriction, as some posts i have come acoss out there indicate it maybe possible.
I have checked the range limit on DJIGO and this is off. I currently dont land to load the next mission , but its just a pain and breaks the video flight path.

Any help would be appreciated
Typo on topic.. apologies
Cheers
Crunch

 

[TwinDad2013]

G’day Mate

We do run Litchi quite extensively and we have run missions up to 11.5km using the similar follow technique. The only limit we have found is the number of waypoints at 99 but I think this is due to the flight upload to the DJI flight controller.

I do not have he the drone with me right now to check but I’m fairly certain you are on the right track with the max radius being the culprit in limiting your mission length.

Good luck

 

[crunchies]

G’day Mate

We do run Litchi quite extensively and we have run missions up to 11.5km using the similar follow technique. The only limit we have found is the number of waypoints at 99 but I think this is due to the flight upload to the DJI flight controller.

I do not have he the drone with me right now to check but I’m fairly certain you are on the right track with the max radius being the culprit in limiting your mission length.

Good luck

G'day

G’day Mate

We do run Litchi quite extensively and we have run missions up to 11.5km using the similar follow technique. The only limit we have found is the number of waypoints at 99 but I think this is due to the flight upload to the DJI flight controller.

I do not have he the drone with me right now to check but I’m fairly certain you are on the right track with the max radius being the culprit in limiting your mission length.

Good luck

G'day
Yes the radius eange is the problem I have tried a few other ways to see if it can be worked around... no it cant.
So a upload in the air every 1950m seems to be it at the moment.
May look at Drone Harmony
Cheers

 

[Donnie Frank]

Gday all.

I am flying an I1v2 and currently using Litchi to carry out video surveys of long distances following tracks and coastal areas. I have encountered the notification of TWO WAYPOINTS ARE TOO FAR APART, this notification apparently relates for the max diszzztance from the first point to the last point.
There is a max radius of 2000m apparently, so all the flights I plan have to be about 1900m.
When these flights are flown i am actually following the I1 in either the passanger seat of car or in a boat and maintain line of sight

Is there any way of getting aound the distance restriction, as some posts i have come acoss out there indicate it maybe possible.
I have checked the range limit on DJIGO and this is off. I currently dont land to load the next mission , but its just a pain and breaks the video flight path.

Any help would be appreciated
Typo on topic.. apologies
Cheers
Crunch

Yes. Create a waypoint in the middle to shorten the distance between waypoints.

I don't use Litchi, but I have encountered this error message with other mapping programs...I believe Map Pilot, if memory serves. The "hack" was to create a midpoint waypoint. If this takes you up past your 99 waypoint limit, split the mission into multiple missions. That worked for me. It's inconvenient, but it gets the job done.

Tip: If your software allows "Connected flights" (which means the Tablet controls the waypoints), this allows for more than 99 waypoints. Map Pilot allows "Connected" and "Connectionless" flights. In the former, you must maintain signal strength with the bird. In the case of the latter, you can take the remote completely off-line and still complete your mission (has to be configured to "Continue mission when signal lost"). Flying LOS (Loss of Signal) can be daunting when your bird is "dark" for 2 or 3 minutes. One must have large brass ones.

Good luck.

 

[The Editor]

Yes. Create a waypoint in the middle to shorten the distance between waypoints.

I don't use Litchi, but I have encountered this error message with other mapping programs...I believe Map Pilot, if memory serves. The "hack" was to create a midpoint waypoint. If this takes you up past your 99 waypoint limit, split the mission into multiple missions. That worked for me. It's inconvenient, but it gets the job done.

Tip: If your software allows "Connected flights" (which means the Tablet controls the waypoints), this allows for more than 99 waypoints. Map Pilot allows "Connected" and "Connectionless" flights. In the former, you must maintain signal strength with the bird. In the case of the latter, you can take the remote completely off-line and still complete your mission (has to be configured to "Continue mission when signal lost"). Flying LOS (Loss of Signal) can be daunting when your bird is "dark" for 2 or 3 minutes. One must have large brass ones.

Good luck.

This will entirely depend on where the OP is located on whether this will be legal or not.
In many countries a non connected flight with no way of aborting/ditching the mission in case of incursion into restricted airspace or a potential collision is a total no no.

 

[Donnie Frank]

This will entirely depend on where the OP is located on whether this will be legal or not.
In many countries a non connected flight with no way of aborting/ditching the mission in case of incursion into restricted airspace or a potential collision is a total no no.

Well...I would assume professionals who don't want to lose their expensive drone(s) known not to fly within restricted air space, Class B, C or D airspace, or into a tree, mountain, building or power line. I also assume professionals fully understand the NAS and how to read a Sectional Chart. I give credit for some common sense. That said....

Anyone who has mapped an 1800 acre plot of land will tell you that all those "rules" regarding "connection" and/or "Line of Sight" go out the window. Unless, of course, you're prepared to scout and launch from 100 locations, build over 50 missions and spend 3 months to map that area. That said...

My partner just bid on a 4,000 acre plot. We budgeted 2 weeks. Anyone care to map that plot of land "line of sight?" This turns our normal 8,000' radius into a 1500" radius. With all due respect, that would be ridiculous. You would be mapping that plot of land for a year.

Many fixed wing mapping solutions are actually designed and marketed to do exactly what you just warned against.

senseFly - sensefly homepage

Not killing the messenger here...just arguing that some of the FAA rules lack common sense. The permitting rigmarole is getting better, but is still time-prohibitive. We don't usually have 2 months to wait for permits. And we don't have the resource to call, email and text multiple times/day. It's ironic that the military never flies their drones "line of sight." But I digress....

Peace out.

 

[The Editor]

Well...I would assume professionals who don't want to lose their expensive drone(s) known not to fly within restricted air space, Class B, C or D airspace, or into a tree, mountain, building or power line. I also assume professionals fully understand the NAS and how to read a Sectional Chart. I give credit for some common sense. That said....

Anyone who has mapped an 1800 acre plot of land will tell you that all those "rules" regarding "connection" and/or "Line of Sight" go out the window. Unless, of course, you're prepared to scout and launch from 100 locations, build over 50 missions and spend 3 months to map that area. That said...

My partner just bid on a 4,000 acre plot. We budgeted 2 weeks. Anyone care to map that plot of land "line of sight?" This turns our normal 8,000' radius into a 1500" radius. With all due respect, that would be ridiculous. You would be mapping that plot of land for a year.

Many fixed wing mapping solutions are actually designed and marketed to do exactly what you just warned against.

senseFly - sensefly homepage

Not killing the messenger here...just arguing that some of the FAA rules lack common sense. The permitting rigmarole is getting better, but is still time-prohibitive. We don't usually have 2 months to wait for permits. And we don't have the resource to call, email and text multiple times/day. It's ironic that the military never flies their drones "line of sight." But I digress....

Peace out.

The FAA have nothing to do with where the OP is which is why I mention it depends on where an operator is domiciled.
Autonomous airframes like the eBee etc are made of foam, weigh nothing and are designed to break apart on collision. They are subject to different rules (which are law in certain countries) than UAS such as a quad weighing several kilos.

 

[Donnie Frank]

The FAA have nothing to do with where the OP is which is why I mention it depends on where an operator is domiciled.

Touché. But every nation has their version of the FAA. Australia has CASA, which I assume has many of the same rules as the FAA. I could be wrong.

Autonomous airframes like the eBee etc are made of foam, weigh nothing and are designed to break apart on collision. They are subject to different rules (which are law in certain countries) than UAS such as a quad weighing several kilos.

While I whole-heartedly agree with you, playing Devil's Advocate here, "it's only made of foam" would be a tough sale to most Aviation Authorities. And not to pick nits, but the P4P (my preferred mapping drone) weighs 1.4 kilos (3 lbs. roughly), not "several kilos." While there ARE quads that weigh more, I can't imagine any quadcopter better for mapping than the P4P.

And while the eBee weighs roughly half that of the P4P, there are other mapping drones, like the Trimble UX5 that weigh almost twice as much as a P4P, which negates the "less weight" argument.

Ultimately, I still believe this comes down to pilot diligence. I tend to own my own safety in all aspects of my life. I find when I allow others to manage my safety, they usually go overboard with nonsensical rules and regulations and don't address the important things that actually apply to me and my situation. So before every flight, I study airspace, weather, the Sun's position in the sky, and any obstacles that may impact drone operations. Once on site, if it seems "breezy," we conduct wind tests in real-time. So far that has served me extremely well.

Some make the fatal mistake of asserting that I "must not care about safety." But nothing could be further from the truth. It just means I spend my "safety scheckels" where they are effective, as opposed to blanket policies, protocols and paradigms that are often less effective than simply concentrating your safety where it's needed. Maybe you share my values?

Interesting conversation.

Peace out.

 

[crunchies]

Yes. Create a waypoint in the middle to shorten the distance between waypoints.

I don't use Litchi, but I have encountered this error message with other mapping programs...I believe Map Pilot, if memory serves. The "hack" was to create a midpoint waypoint. If this takes you up past your 99 waypoint limit, split the mission into multiple missions. That worked for me. It's inconvenient, but it gets the job done.

Tip: If your software allows "Connected flights" (which means the Tablet controls the waypoints), this allows for more than 99 waypoints. Map Pilot allows "Connected" and "Connectionless" flights. In the former, you must maintain signal strength with the bird. In the case of the latter, you can take the remote completely off-line and still complete your mission (has to be configured to "Continue mission when signal lost"). Flying LOS (Loss of Signal) can be daunting when your bird is "dark" for 2 or 3 minutes. One must have large brass ones.

Good luck.

Thanks.
Ill give map pilot a go.
I have tried the hack without success already but i am also trying to stay with apps that sync with air data.
Thanks for the tips.

 

[Donnie Frank]

Thanks.
Ill give map pilot a go.
I have tried the hack without success already but i am also trying to stay with apps that sync with air data.
Thanks for the tips.

You bet. Lemme know how it goes.

BTW, I use Map Pilot because it's Terrain Aware. Is Litchi?

 

[Avocet]

You bet. Lemme know how it goes.

BTW, I use Map Pilot because it's Terrain Aware. Is Litchi?

Yes, Litchi is terrain aware, but only partially. Mission/Waypoint planning still requires you to account for elevation variances (it will however, show you what your alt above ground is for a waypoint or a POI for instance.) I think it is using Google data for satellite and GIS information, and that, my friend, can be very sketchy. It will not warn you or keep you from boring a small whole into the ground. Mission/Waypoint planning is an art-form.

 

[Donnie Frank]

Yes, Litchi is terrain aware, but only partially. Mission/Waypoint planning still requires you to account for elevation variances (it will however, show you what your alt above ground is for a waypoint or a POI for instance.) I think it is using Google data for satellite and GIS information, and that, my friend, can be very sketchy. It will not warn you or keep you from boring a small whole into the ground. Mission/Waypoint planning is an art-form.

Interesting. Map Pilot uses Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data and has been very accurate. But it comes at a price, so I bounce back and forth between GS Pro and Map Pilot. If there's very little elevation, I use GS Pro because I can import KML files and the missions build themselves (waypoints automatically populate). Conversely, Map Pilot requires a little hacking to import KML files, and then I have to build the missions by hand. Map Pilot has corridor mapping, but GS Pro will do odd shaped polygons. It sure would be nice to combine features of both programs into one. That said, between the 2 programs, we can map just about anything.

I just did a 13-mile long corridor for a utility company. Map Pilot's "corridor" feature came in REAL handy. That mission would've been nearly impossible without that feature - fully Terrain Aware, which was very necessary since there was over 600' of elevation from the lowest to the highest point, with 100' hills everywhere. We flew the missions @ 200' AGL. So one can see how a 100' hill would produce photo inconsistency.

The other feature of Map Pilot is the ability to shoot nadir or adjust to oblique on the fly. So we flew the missions twice; once nadir and the other 15° oblique. The latter didn't require we rebuild the missions. We were able to fly the same, exact missions, but with a 15° camera angle. Because the bird was out as far as 8000', we flew "connectionless." Map Pilot worked amazingly well. I think we collected over 10,000 photos, which my business partner was still processing in Pix4D 2 weeks after the job was finished.

And finally, because I can drag-n-drop missions out of Map Pilot, it's easy to back up the missions to a second, third and fourth iPad so me and my partner can fly multiple missions simultaneously. It's taken us 2 years to come up with a work flow, which changes constantly as these mapping programs deploy new features. For example, the ability to map corridors was less than 2 weeks old when we took on that corridor job. Of course, I tested the bejesus out of it before we used it in the field.

Phun times...

 

[Avocet]

Nice. Sounds like a lot of mapping requirements for your situation. I would probably not use Litchi for mapping tasks - more for aerial video and stills.

 

[Donnie Frank]

Nice. Sounds like a lot of mapping requirements for your situation. I would probably not use Litchi for mapping tasks - more for aerial video and stills.

I've been using Autopilot for programmed video. So far, it's been very consistent. That said, I haven't let it update in the 1.5 years I've been using it. Once this construction project is over, I'll probably let it update, but keep a legacy version handy just in case.

 

[Avocet]

I've been using Autopilot for programmed video. So far, it's been very consistent. That said, I haven't let it update in the 1.5 years I've been using it. Once this construction project is over, I'll probably let it update, but keep a legacy version handy just in case.

Donnie, Autopilot is a terrific piece of software and I've used it occasionally. Haven't seen the updates either, but perhaps Missions can be off-boarded to quads these days - that was NOT the case a while back. Probably the most sophisticated platform for the Prosumer retail environment, etc. - which is not for everyone, but I enjoyed geeking out on it to be sure.

The deal breaker for me is knowing the mission software for Litchi runs remotely unlike Autopilot's local footprint (realtime comm between quad and TX). Turn the TX off, go home, whatever, and the Litchi mission will fly to completion unless of catastrophic battery failure or an oversight or poor mission planning. I don't usually lose connectivity with my Litchi missions but it HAS happened and you learn to trust that the quad will return and carry out the Mission Completed parameter.

 

[Donnie Frank]

Donnie, Autopilot is a terrific piece of software and I've used it occasionally. Haven't seen the updates either, but perhaps Missions can be off-boarded to quads these days - that was NOT the case a while back. Probably the most sophisticated platform for the Prosumer retail environment, etc. - which is not for everyone, but I enjoyed geeking out on it to be sure.

The deal breaker for me is knowing the mission software for Litchi runs remotely unlike Autopilot's local footprint (realtime comm between quad and TX). Turn the TX off, go home, whatever, and the Litchi mission will fly to completion unless of catastrophic battery failure or an oversight or poor mission planning. I don't usually lose connectivity with my Litchi missions but it HAS happened and you learn to trust that the quad will return and carry out the Mission Completed parameter.

I did a corridor mission down South of me. There was a small area of the corridor that netted complete drone blackout. Because it was an industrial area, I chalk it up to WiFi and/or cell tower interference. Every time the bird would pass through that section, she'd go black for about a minute. That was about 6,000' down range, so it WAS a bit of a nail biter. We were using Map Pilot in "Connectionless" mode.

The funny thing is, as far as I know, there are no tools to predict microwave dead zones. So this is yet ANOTHER environment variable that we must consider. My partner and I agreed that, for long corridor missions in industrial areas, we'd make an effort to locate cell towers to see if there's any correlation between black outs and cell tower locations. My concern is that *erroneous* signal might do something "wacky" to the drone. But I *believe* when she's flying autonomous waypoint missions, RF becomes almost irrelevant (not completely, but less of a concern). I don't think she responds to joystick commands (I should probably test that theory), therefore erroneous joy stick-ish RF may not be a concern. An erroneous RTH command *would* be problem, but haven't experienced that yet.

Funny how much there is to this mapping stuff. It's a bit challenging, but I really enjoy it.

 

[JimDow]

Would anyone be interested in flying gently curved, convergent, non-traditional (non-linear/non-parallel) flight line missions to a) acquire a much more diverse view perspective and b) help mitigate the well known Structure-from-Motion doming [elevation] error? Take a look at the waypoint mission plan attached and let me know what you think.