Elite Hobbyist Plan for Mavic Dual FLIR to Avoid Getting Eaten By Bears?

NoBearSnack

Thoughts on the Elite Hobbyist plan for my goal to keep from getting eaten by a bear?  I realize much of this will be dependent on what functionality the DJI SDK releases in the future since the thermal camera isn't yet supported.  I just want to get an idea if this is something that might be doable down the road with custom functions and such that I could program....

I'd like to use my Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual to fly regular missions over my heavily forested forty acre property in Alaska using the thermal camera in ISOTHERM MSX mode and have it execute a custom function whenever the drone sees a hot spot in a particular temperature range.  Basically I want it to scan the property looking for brown and black bears and moose (but mostly bears).  I know the Dual allows for setting a window and generating an audio alert based on custom temps seen in that square.  I'd like to use that to basically have the drone center and fly down to 20 feet above the hot spot (or above any trees detected -- I have a point cloud of my property that perhaps can be leveraged) and do a video orbit of the object.  Then stream that video of the hot spot (and the coordinates of the hot spot) back to a computer where I can have image detection done using Python code.  Then the drone should climb back to its working altitude and continue on scanning the property and do this any time it sees a hot spot (basically anything from 80F-105F).

Eventually I'd like to add logic to have it use the Loudspeaker on the Dual to talk to the bear to try to get it to leave depending on where it's at on the property if my Python code determines its a bear and can pass coordinates back to DroneLink to execute a bear-scare-loudspeaker mission.  Fly 20 feet above the bear (staying clear of trees) and playing a "bear be gone" message over the speaker until the bear leaves the property.

I'm hoping eventually to get an auto charging station and to be able to have the drone do this routinely (assuming my Python code connected to our weather station hardware reports that the weather and winds are good) and to be able to leverage the DroneLink over the web when we're not home.  I realize this may be problematic due to LOS rules and such and I may need to get some kind of permission if that's even feasible (missions would all be over my property just above the trees and we live in the middle of nowhere off grid in Alaska).

I'll search the forum to see if its possible for my own software to interact with DroneLink to select a mission and launch the drone in an automated fashion.  Also, to see if there is a way to have DroneLink pass coordinates along with video to a file somewhere that my Python program can access it, and to see if it's possible to have my Python send that coordinate back to DroneLink and launch a specific mission with that coordinate.

All missions would be conducted over our property just above tree level.  We live in the sticks away from people, off grid, but we have decent solar capability and battery storage and we have reliable internet thanks to a cell tower within LOS.

The old timers here said we didn't have brown bears in these parts but bears do migrate.  That proved to be the case when we came back from a trip to the city a couple months ago and discovered a brown bear with six cubs had destroyed the yurt we live in.  Destroyed everything except the wood stove in the center.

Many thanks for any thoughts on whether the Elite Hobbyist plan might be something I can leverage down the road with future SDKs to help with our goal.  I think it might be worth purchasing and learning but wanted to ask for any feedback first.  Many thanks!

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Comments

2 comments

  • Comment author
    NoBearSnack

    I went ahead and purchased and am trying to learn.  It would appear that Mavic Dual thermal support has been added since it shows up as a selectable camera in the software.  Looking forward to trying this out.

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  • Comment author
    Jim McAndrew Dronelink Staff

    As stated in the feature request thread, this level of functionality will require using the Dronelink SDK.

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