Flight control of the aircraft is handled by DJI Waypoint system, so once you have a mission loaded up, that is what it is going to do. To enable faster and more adjustable framing, Map Pilot needs to maintain a strong connection to the aircraft to manage the taking of images and deliver telemetry.
We two things very early on it our testing: the signal quality goes away quickly in various conditions and drones are really hard to keep track of when flying high and fast.
We attempt to address both of these issues by providing a direction indicator under the top status bar. It's orange circles and arrows show you when you are pointed in the right direction or where you need to turn towards to maintain signal integrity.
Also, there is an audible beep that occurs when the signal strength dips below 85% in case the pilot is asleep at the wheel. In our testing, the quality of the connection degrades very quickly below 85%. If you need to operate at a lesser signal and things are working, feel free to mute the audio with your devices mute switch.
This is an example of a properly aligned remote. The blue arrow shows that the middle large circle in the indicator is highlighted which means that the mobile device is pointed straight at the drone.
This is an example of a poorly aligned remote. The orange arrow on the right is highlighted which means that the pilot needs to turn at least 90 degrees to their right in order to be properly aligned.
Antenna alignment has a lot to do with maintaining signal quality too. This is a good video from DJI that explains how to get the maximum signal out of your remote's antennae.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/EHoGvvCbukA
Good point on the antenna's for those that do not know. My range extenders also make a big difference.
What are the symptoms of loss of signal? I'm presuming the the aircraft will fly and return as planned, so that safety of the aircraft is not the problem. I'm presuming that the flight's location on the display would be disrupted... would images be missed, as well?
The symptoms of signal loss are jumpy movements of the red aircraft icon, irregular imaging intervals, the audible beep and the signal strength percentage.
If the aircraft gets out of control range it will continue on the planned flight and return home. However, it will not take images and telemetry will not be received once it is out of range.
We will be introducing a connectionless mapping mode in a future release.
please release connectionless mapping mode soon.
I got a lot of problem using this app since the signal must be strong and I have problem with my signal where I am (unexplicabely but that's the case) so I cannot complete any mission because there is always pictures missing. Verry annoying and I'm having contract to fullfill and cannot do it since the "connecionless mapping mode" be released so hurry up please ... there's another software out there that is called "Skycatch Commander" that already does it but the rest of it is crap and the price for an acre is sky high so it's not an option but this software, running completely autonomously would be a charm.
Please release connectionless mapping!!!!! its really needed.
lease release connectionless mapping!!
Dear Developers, any update on the connectionless mapping mode? Cheers!
Yes, connectionless mapping would be great. Drone Deploy does this, and it works great. It just goes into "collecting images" mode and clicks at a fixed frequency, sometimes even during RTH or after it lands.... I'd much rather have too many images than not enough. Why not have an option for the most conservative timing, and then allow the sequence to be edited before stitching, eliminating excess images on turns, or areas that are covered too heavily.
We haven't released the connectionless mapping mode yet because it breaks about as many things as it fixes. We are waiting for DJI to add a few features to the SDK before releasing it.
Due to the camera sensor's rolling shutter, taking images at a fixed interval causes some pretty big issues with the processing since images taken at different speeds will have different apparent ground spot sizes. If longer images (fast) and shorter images (slow) are averaged together, the result is a lower quality and less accurate map. We don't jump through all the hoops of doing what we do for no reason... All Map Pilot images are taken while travelling the same speed which gives a consistent ground footprint.
We understand that sometimes it can be hard to maintain a consistent connection at range but we don't like adding half baked features that require more support than they are worth. If other apps work well and provide the features you need, have at it!
I appreciate how hard it must be to deal with DJI's APIs. And I appreciate your concern for maintaining image quality.
I haven't noticed the problems you mention when using Drone Deploy, which uses the fixed frequency. But I LOVE having the imaging continue if I lose a connection for a while... it gives me so much more freedom to plan my flights. And having "good enough" data is far better than having to refly a survey to gather the "perfect" data.
Couldn't this be a user's decision? Particularly on bright sunny days, couldn't we just have an option to use only high shutter speed images?