Pro H with RealSense in command

Rayray · Jul 29, 2016

Pardon for this poor effort, my first attempt at this.

From this video start to finish, the RealSense is controlling the drone, I do not touch controls or switches.
You will see it do things I cannot explain...but, but, it does not crash!!! It's in Smart, Follow Me mode. Only 25' high when it started, higher at the end.

tooshady · Jul 29, 2016

Wow its like what is it looking at....? Thats pretty crappy It needs to be improved hopefully with updates it will get better. It is cutting edge so need to give it a lil time to get better.

horizontal · Jul 29, 2016

I don't agree. I think it is pretty awesome for a real life demo of Realsense. The foliage through which it successfully flies is much more dense than anything exhibited by the videos following a bicycle. I especially can appreciate how it gained height to fly over the trees trying to stay with Ray.

I haven't had the nerve to test it as extensively as this was. My efforts have only been flying it up to and in front of conifers. Thanks for the test Ray

WilsonFlyer · Jul 29, 2016

The situational awareness is impressive. First time I've seen something that actually impressed me and didn't look staged. Thanks for letting the camera follow the natural yaw of the craft. IT really gives perspective to what's actually going on. That may actually be what will throw prospective viewers off the most, but it tells me exactly what this video was supposed to. RealSense does it's job. You can control the camera by hand.

Brandon Lowe · Jul 29, 2016

I looks like the camera was set to always point forward on the quad. Can't you change the mode so the camera is always point at what it is following?

KEN TARDIO · Jul 30, 2016

It looks like it had a difficult time keeping track of where the radio was but all in all I am very impressed as well. Maybe there are some little tricks that haven't come to light yet. Anytime you don't crash it is always considered a very good flight.

Dutch Nolke · Jul 30, 2016

RAYRAY,

Thank you for this. Your bird is searching for you.

Haydn · Jul 30, 2016

Brandon Lowe said:
I looks like the camera was set to always point forward on the quad. Can't you change the mode so the camera is always point at what it is following?

I agree, the pan switch was incorrectly poisoned, so the camera is following the front of the H not the subject. If you do it again, just change that one setting and it should be a better video for the viewer.
But I also liked to see just how much it kept looking fit trouble. If it saw an obstacle it turned and looked at it to scan it, then work out which way to move. Found another possible obstacle scanned it and moved.
Thanks for the clip.

WilsonFlyer · Jul 30, 2016

I think you guys are missing the point of the video. Obviously, if the camera is pointed at the subject it will record him. The point is to show the reaction RealSense provides to the hex when it approaches an object in its way, and I think it does a most excellent job of doing just that and only that.

I don't have any reason to believe the camera wouldn't record what it's told to point to. That's a different issue entirely anyway.

Rayray · Jul 30, 2016

Thanks to those of you who understood that this test was not about me, or the video quality, but the RealSense being in complete control. I had no help. In Team ops, the cam can be controlled separately, and kept aimed at the ST16. I could have aimed the cam during this test, but again, that was not my choice. So many here think some videos are faked. Nothing on this video was faked or edited.

Brandon, Watch Me mode watches the ST16, unfortunately will not follow.

THoff · Jul 30, 2016

Rayray said:
Brandon, Watch Me mode watches the ST16, unfortunately will not follow.

I don't think that is correct. If my understanding is correct Watch Me does follow, but unlike Follow Me (which uses a fixed camera position) it will also adjust the camera angle.

Rayray · Jul 30, 2016

THoff said:
I don't think that is correct. If my understanding is correct Watch Me does follow, but unlike Follow Me (which uses a fixed camera position) it will also adjust the camera angle.

That's what I thought, but I've tried it twice now, and it did not follow. I only went away 200' and it just hovered in place, so I'll try it again where I have more room. Hey, I'm having fun. Is that not what a $1900 toy should provide?

DocPaulo · Jul 30, 2016

That's a lot of guts trusting the technology in that type of foliage... good job and thanks for posting

Amazing to see it work though... it would be nice to see what happens with and without realsense on for comparison... but that's an expensive test if it fails

THoff · Jul 30, 2016

Rayray said:
That's what I thought, but I've tried it twice now, and it did not follow. I only went away 200' and it just hovered in place, so I'll try it again where I have more room. Hey, I'm having fun. Is that not what a $1900 toy should provide?

I have done one test of the Watch Me mode where I had the THP follow my car for a short distance. I set the height a bit low and when the video feed stopped, I thought the bird hit a tree, so I ended my experiment. It turns out the foliage probably blocked the communications between the ST16 and THP.

But the THP did follow the ST16 while I was driving, and moved the camera to try to keep the car in the center of the frame.

Rayray · Jul 30, 2016

THoff said:
I have done one test of the Watch Me mode where I had the THP follow my car for a short distance. I set the height a bit low and when the video feed stopped, I thought the bird hit a tree, so I ended my experiment. It turns out the foliage probably blocked the communications between the ST16 and THP.

But the THP did follow the ST16 while I was driving, and moved the camera to try to keep the car in the center of the frame.

Cool! Where did you have the ST16 in/on the car? And did the bird stop and hover or what?

I have a good test site not far away. I'll see if I can try it using a 4-wheeler.

THoff · Jul 30, 2016

I had the ST16 on the front seat, I wanted to give it as much of a view of the sky as I could because the metal car roof blocks GPS -- too bad the ST16 doesn't have an input for an auxiliary GPS antenna, I have a couple that I could have used. I also wanted to be able to glasses nce at the screen and make sure the THP was actually following me.

Anyway, I am not sure exactly what happened. The ST16 could have lost GPS lock, the control link between the ST16 and THP might have been blocked, or it could have been a combination of those things. When I realized that the video feed stopped, I feared the THP had hit a tree, so I stopped the car, revered a short distance to a place where I could pull off the road, and then tried to locate the bird. Luckily I found it hovering, but at some point the failsafe mode would have kicked in and it would have tried to fly to the last known location of the ST16 on a narrow road with tall trees on either side, and I was flying with Obstacle Avoidance off because that limits the flight speed too much.

Anyway, I re-established the connection and put the THP in Angle mode to fly it back. I had a brain fart and didn't use the video feed for that, and it took me a couple of seconds to get my bearings -- I initially flew further away before realizing my mistake. Fortunately I watched a video some time ago that taught a technique for flying a drone home when you can't tell its orientation.

I'll upload a video of my test to Youtube and will edit this post to include a link.