How to make turns simpler
Hi, I am using dronelink to inspect solar sites. I am flying setting the drone to fly perpendicular to the path. For example, the path goes 0-180 degrees and the drone is pointing to 270. Nevertheless, when transitioning from one line to the next, it stops pointing to 270 degress, makes a complete turn and then points again to 270 degrees to start the next line. Is this normal behaviour or can I change it so the drone does a simpler "always pointing to 270" turn?
Thanks in advance!
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18 comments
When you say 270 Do you mean to the path or to north ie facing west, maybe if you could share one of your plans we could advise better
Hi, Martin,
I mean that my flight lines goes north to south ( from 0 to 180 degrees) and the drone is pointing to the west (270 degrees). Hope this makes it clearer. On the screen the flight lines go from top to bottom and the drone is always pointing left, not bottom.
Lets see with the attached image (the drone is pointing its camera -green arrows- perpendicularly to the flight path in red). The thing is that at the end of each line the drone makes a complete turn on its yaw instead of keep pointing to the left, move down to the next line and start it while still pointing to the left:
By the way, here you are the flight plan..
https://app.dronelink.com/dxingenieria/my-first-project/plan/91XYn5VBMwe4YSMg1VxL/wI0LHvNvblF4dH3QBuzm
In few words you want to keep the camera to the same direction (i.e. the solar panels), reference being the north (for example).
The thing is that I have not problem while doing the lines, the issue is just between lines. At the end of the line the drone does a complete turnaround like you can see on number 1 in the next figure and I would expect the drone do a turn like in number 2 (like litchi does, for example):
Right it looks like at the moment you have the drone heading set to 270 from the path, which is why it turns as it does, there are several options available for the direction the drone faces
Select custom
Then set it to 270 North
Just try setting drone heading to Right. It may still rotate at end of each leg when it turns back because the drone will usually start flying forward by default to the next leg. But it then rotates back to the right again for each pass so it’s pointing in the same direction. It doesn’t matter if it has a rotation at the end of each leg because it’s not taking photos there and just transitioning to the next leg. Hope they helps.
Martin Reading, in fact all my plans are (at least in the UI) pointing 270 taking north as reference, not the path. Mike, If I set it to right it will be pointing to the opposite direction after each turn, won't it?
There must be a bug or something because even using north as a reference the drone will rotate between legs. It also does it on the dronelink simulation...
The mapping component works differently than a normal path as far as I know. I’m guessing this is due to using on things like facades which usually point in one direction. Either way will work in this case I just figured it is easier to just select right. The rotations at each end may still happen.
Ok, so it seems this is a feature reserved for solar inspection and not mapping and that is what I should be using...
https://support.dronelink.com/hc/en-us/articles/4414291492371-Solar-Farm-Inspection-Mission-Planning-and-Key-Features
Don’t think it’s a bug. As I mentioned, it usually doesn’t take shots while transitioning to next leg so doesn’t really matter. Also I noticed you have photo capture intervals set to 1 second. Not only is it not necessary but your drone can not capture at 1 second intervals. Check your drones specs to see what it is capable of. Most common are 2, 3, 5, 7 etc…. The drones firmware will only allow functions or settings which are the same when using the DJI App. So if it won’t work in DJI then it won’t work with Dronelink.
DXIngenieria
Yes. There are several different types of mapping components so it will depend on what your needing to accomplish.
Ok, so I must use solar inspection, the thing is that help says that if you set relative to north it wont turn and thats not correct to my knowledge. Regarding the shooting interval, I have been shooting with a 1 second interval this morning and no photos were lost. It is true that I was taking both thermal and wide and the wide lens was set to 12 MP, not 48... let's see what happens but flying at 3s per photo is not possible... too slow.
Looks like the Mavic 3E can take 1 second intervals so should work.
I will double ckeck it but I got 80% overlap flying at 23 meters on the thermal image which is pretty much (17 km/h). The DJI Mavic 3E does shoot at 0.7 seconds interval with the zoom camera. Checked it too. And it has a global shutter so quality is good. In the past I found the limiting factor being the hard limits imposed by the UI and the SD cards speed. I am using the fastest Samsung cards around...
Ok. Looks like even the Solar Inspection component doesn’t take photos on the turns as well. So whatever you think will work best I’d use. A standard mapping component doesn’t capture while turning as well. This is normal.
https://support.dronelink.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/19608940426771-Lateral-overlap-when-flying-perpendicular-to-main-path?page=1#community_comment_19655902296979
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