Mission POI is off

Thomas Labus

I have used POI Path missions, and many of them work fine. However, there are some I have that are not working as expected. The one I run right in front of my house is great, it follows the POI right where it should. I have another one that goes out from my house about 380' up, and 300' high, and it always seems to be WAY off on the POI, looking quite to the left. The drone itself follows the path exactly as it should. Another path I have appears the the gimbal points a bit to the left when it is set to point straight ahead and down 45 degrees. The downward angle is correct. The drone itself follows the path correctly. I have calibrated the IMU and gimbal before each of these missions. What can be causing this?

Here is a link to a video to show what I mean...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT0xaSyujII

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Comments

18 comments

  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    I meant to say a distance of 380' and 300' high.

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    I double checked my settings on the one following the road, and I may have had the gimbal heading wrong there, it may have been set to north instead of path or heading....  however, the part after I stopped the video on my post, the drone turned right (going West), and was still pointed left (south). I will try to re-run that mission this afternoon weather permitting. The on that moves to the house I still cannot find why it is off.

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    Here is the link for that one...  https://app.dronelink.com/thomas-labus/test/plan/PWHe1ubxo5qPwvTiJphg/vYjAaJp4AvBF6xiyumAe

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  • Comment author
    Jim McAndrew Dronelink Staff

    If you had it as north and not path, that would be a problem.

    As far as the house, the sensors on the drone are only so accurate, and the closer you get, the more the error margin applies. You may also need to consider calibrating your gimbal.

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    I calibrated everything before the each mission, and my results are consistent each time I run it. The stunning part to me is that it is pointing left instead of right, not being just a touch off. It almost appears that the drone itself might be rotated to the left, not the gimbal...  like it is flying slightly sideways. 

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    I will try to make another video this afternoon. I will run the same mission in daylight, and then also do a manual flight with photos of the expected angle.

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    Another test I can do is t set the gimbal to the heading instead of using POI and set marker in various locations to only change the pitch.

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus
    • Edited

    OK, I am still getting bad results even on the one going around the block. I have the gimbal pitch at -45, and the gimbal heading at 0 degrees heading. I have also slowed the drone down to 10mph instead of 15. Below are the links for the with Airdata and the video.

    https://app.airdata.com/share/JTNzGl

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTxTssMqJhU

    It was just a little off on the first street, pretty good on the second, but at 1:25 in the video, it makes a right turn and the gimbal is quite off. I it gets way worse with the next right turn at 2:05 in the video.

     

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  • Comment author
    Jim McAndrew Dronelink Staff

    When the drone lands do you see something like this?

    https://support.dronelink.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360034749773-Seeming-to-have-a-Heading-error-

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    I ran the mission again just now. For most of the path, it was more accurate than it has been. I did make a modification to the mission, I added that the Drone Heading also be path...  However, when it got to the last street, it again started looking to the left. I was watching it closely, and noticed the drone itself was pointing to the left, not the gimbal. The gimbal looked perfectly straight. This surprised me as I assumed this whole time that the gimbal was the part that was turned.

    I have read the thread you showed me in the past, but I did not see a resolution on it, and I am sure I am running a version of the app that is far newer since I didn't even install the app for the first time until about a year later.

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    I ran it again today as well...  it is definitely the drone being rotated rather than the gimbal being pitched. Is this something likely with Dronelink, or do you think I might have something wrong with the drone itself?

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  • Comment author
    Jim McAndrew Dronelink Staff
    • Edited

    No one else is reporting any issues, so my first guess would be the drone. We are not seeing similar behavior in any of our testing.

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    Well, good news and bad news...  I exchanged the drone and ran the mission going around the block. It ran as designed!

    The bad news is, now it will not even complete the POI mission. It seems like it fails right after it starts to rise after reaching its approach point. It claims that it is too far off course, however, it appears to be right where it should be. According to the flight logs, Wind does not appear to be an issue.

    https://app.airdata.com/share/xmkden

    https://app.airdata.com/share/MogJes

    https://app.airdata.com/share/GHSYvZ

    https://app.airdata.com/share/oqxLVb (something was off on this as it seems I can fly at 182mph)

    https://app.airdata.com/share/QeQFYz

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  • Comment author
    Jim McAndrew Dronelink Staff

    Can you try upgrading to 2.0?

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus
    • Edited

    OK, I just upgraded to the new version. The mission ran again, but unfortunately, the POI is still off. I will post the video and Airdata soon.

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    What is strange, is the Airdata seem to show the drone is pointing in about the correct direction.

    Side note...  It appears that the live video during flight is much better after the app update.

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  • Comment author
    Thomas Labus

    Success!!!  It finally ran as expected, for the most part. Here is what I changed, not sure which one, or combination corrected it....

    • Changed speed to 5mph instead of 10
    • Started POI after it already started it's forward path and descent
    • Set the path to match exactly the direction of the POI

    There were a few very noticeable stutters and pauses, but it did not kill the mission, and the data shows that it could have been caused by the wind on this flight. So for now, I am not worried about that. Unfortunately I will not be able to run this until at least Saturday to see if I can duplicate the good results and zero in which item fixed it.

    Thank you for your time and have a Merry Christmas!

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  • Comment author
    Jim McAndrew Dronelink Staff

    Great - Merry Christmas!

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