RealSense Modes?

Brian Clark · Oct 5, 2016

In what automatic modes is RealSense Obstacle Avoidance enabled on the Pro?

I have seen statements that it is not enabled when RTH is activated but I have seen statements and video showing it in action during RTH. Which is it?

I know it is active in Watch Me mode, but not sure what other modes.

Thanks for any insight anyone can share.

Dragonflyerthom · Oct 5, 2016

Hopefully someone with a real sense pro will be able to answer that question

Windluv · Oct 5, 2016

I have the Pro with Rs. Did try the RTH, with realsense on - and thought it did work but that was a few weeks ago. I will try again, but it won't be until the beginning of next week. Will update.

Rayray · Oct 5, 2016

Brian Clark said:
In what automatic modes is RealSense Obstacle Avoidance enabled on the Pro?

I have seen statements that it is not enabled when RTH is activated but I have seen statements and video showing it in action during RTH. Which is it?

I know it is active in Watch Me mode, but not sure what other modes.

Automatic only in Smart Mode, Watch Me or Follow Me. In other modes it must be manually switched on, including RTH. Hope this helps.

Angel · Oct 5, 2016

And does not work at ALL in other modes like CCC. That seems silly to me...

richard bottos · Oct 6, 2016

An interesting output, if you have your pro hover with oa on. walk towards it. It will turn around 180 degrees go back about 10 feet and turn around again. I think this is the chicken mode!

Dragonflyerthom · Oct 7, 2016

That is too funny Richard.

slate8288 · Oct 16, 2016

Hey guys...I too was looking for some insight on this. The tech from Yuneec told me our Obs Avoid switch has nothing to do with the RealSense Unit. It only enables the Sonar on the front of the unit which will not find another path but stop and hover to avoid, and works in any mode. This slows the drone down to about half gps enabled speed. The realSense is automatically on when in Smart Mode (Follow me, etc.) and also in RTH, no matter the position of the obs avoid switch. One sure way to know if realSense is enabled is to check the direction of the drone. When enabled the drone will always spin itself so that the RealSense Unit faces the direction of flight. So in theory when we hit the RTH switch, if its facing away, she should spin 180 then fly back if this is true. I just got this info on friday and have not gotten a chance to check myself. Please reply any findings. Thx! p.s. DID YUNEEC have a fight with INTEL? Why dont they provide any clear info on the RealSense Unit????

Rayray · Oct 16, 2016

slate8288 said:
Hey guys...I too was looking for some insight on this. The tech from Yuneec told me our Obs Avoid switch has nothing to do with the RealSense Unit. It only enables the Sonar on the front of the unit which will not find another path but stop and hover to avoid, and works in any mode. This slows the drone down to about half gps enabled speed. The realSense is automatically on when in Smart Mode (Follow me, etc.) and also in RTH, no matter the position of the obs avoid switch. One sure way to know if realSense is enabled is to check the direction of the drone. When enabled the drone will always spin itself so that the RealSense Unit faces the direction of flight. So in theory when we hit the RTH switch, if its facing away, she should spin 180 then fly back if this is true. I just got this info on friday and have not gotten a chance to check myself. Please reply any findings. Thx! p.s. DID YUNEEC have a fight with INTEL? Why dont they provide any clear info on the RealSense Unit????

If you have the Pro with RealSense, an easy way to see if RealSense is working is to move the drone, with front facing direction of travel, toward any object. If RealSense is active you will began to hear "pinging" sounds from the ST-16. Sonar will not make that sound.

slate8288 · Oct 16, 2016

Rayray said:
If you have the Pro with RealSense, an easy way to see if RealSense is working is to move the drone, with front facing direction of travel, toward any object. If RealSense is active you will began to hear "pinging" sounds from the ST-16. Sonar will not make that sound.[/

thx...will try that!

Dragonflyerthom · Oct 16, 2016

I know when I have optical on even though I don't have the pro the unit will turn around 180° come back and as soon as it gets over my position it turns another 180° and starts to desend and that's when I intercepted it.

Mickeyboo · Oct 16, 2016

slate8288 said:
Thx! p.s. DID YUNEEC have a fight with INTEL? Why dont they provide any clear info on the RealSense Unit????

I've been wondering about this since I got an H-Pro. There is virtually no documentation about Real Sense and now they've dropped the price $400 on the Pro H...I'm hoping perhaps another more useful version will be coming out. Thus why waste time with documentation or a video tutorial if you will soon be releasing a newer model. Without documentation and with limited use of it I've found the current iteration a waste of money. For those of you waiting for the Real Sense only version to install on the your existing H's consider yourselves lucky, if you had been able to get it I don't think you'd be very happy with it. Your mileage may vary.

slate8288 · Oct 16, 2016

I Think is actually amazing in follow, watch me. The thing is we want to know for sure if we have that tech on the RTH without actually crashing our $1800 into a tree or building. YUNNEC GIVE US THE INFO!!!! Yeah right!

slate8288 · Oct 16, 2016

Dragonflyerthom said:
I know when I have optical on even though I don't have the pro the unit will turn around 180° come back and as soon as it gets over my position it turns another 180° and starts to desend and that's when I intercepted it.

See what I mean.....blows my theory right out out of the water......WE NEED DOCS!!!!

Mickeyboo · Oct 16, 2016

For me "watch me" is of no commercial value unless when I'm shooting for a client I feel like Alfred Hitchcock that day.

Brian Mackey · Oct 16, 2016

Rayray said:
If you have the Pro with RealSense, an easy way to see if RealSense is working is to move the drone, with front facing direction of travel, toward any object. If RealSense is active you will began to hear "pinging" sounds from the ST-16. Sonar will not make that sound.

It does now with the new firmware

pinging noise that is and the st16 vibrates

Dragonflyerthom · Oct 16, 2016

Mickey my advance H does almost everything that the real sense does except it does not calculate a way to go around obstacles.

Mickeyboo · Oct 16, 2016

Again in my limited use of the Real Sense feature the way it jerks around an object makes the footage not something I could use, since there is no good documentation I can't tell if it's me not using it properly or just poorly designed ver. 1 of something which hopefully will improve. Why can't they do a demo video of what the various settings yield? I get much better results flying without it.

slate8288 · Nov 2, 2016

slate8288 said:
Hey guys...I too was looking for some insight on this. The tech from Yuneec told me our Obs Avoid switch has nothing to do with the RealSense Unit. It only enables the Sonar on the front of the unit which will not find another path but stop and hover to avoid, and works in any mode. This slows the drone down to about half gps enabled speed. The realSense is automatically on when in Smart Mode (Follow me, etc.) and also in RTH, no matter the position of the obs avoid switch. One sure way to know if realSense is enabled is to check the direction of the drone. When enabled the drone will always spin itself so that the RealSense Unit faces the direction of flight. So in theory when we hit the RTH switch, if its facing away, she should spin 180 then fly back if this is true. I just got this info on friday and have not gotten a chance to check myself. Please reply any findings. Thx! p.s. DID YUNEEC have a fight with INTEL? Why dont they provide any clear info on the RealSense Unit????

So I spoke with another Tech from yuneec today and got a totally different answer. He said realsense is only on when we flip the obstacle avoidance switch. HE SAID, it's never automatically on, even in smart mode and RTH. Reason being it cuts the speed of the H and that may not be appropriate for all situations. This sounds logical. Any solid docs for the module yet? I just want to know it's limitations so I can be sure to stay within them and don't have the $ to do the trial and error thing.

Christoph · Nov 2, 2016

I've tried it in allsorts of situations. The realsense is only on when you have that switch fully down. Middle and top are off. If you turn it on during RTH, the thing will climb to the default 66ft or to whatever you set it to. If it comes across a tree 124ft tall, it will navigate around it etc... Even with the wizard in smart mode (default follow), the realsense is not on, you have to enable it. When it is enabled, the best way of telling that it is indeed on, is by observing the front nav lights (white) flashing rapidly - solid white indicates that it is not on.

All of this aside, it does cut the speed quite a lot (11mph max), but it works amazingly well - makes me laugh each time I use it. It also learns the environment, therefore, the more times you fly in the same place, the faster it will navigate it on subsequent occasions.
Hope this helps.
Chris.