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Survey settings DataPilot

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Hy all,

I am on to my first survey, and it is a big one, so I have some quuestions :

1/ Will the H520 return to it's home point automatically when the battery depletes, or do one have to initiate ourselves (fly back ourselves or RTL) ?
2/ What is the purpose of the mission-start waypoint-altitude, as, you also have to also set the survey-height ?
3/ Is the survey-height relative or absolute to the Planned Home Position altitude (that changes if you drag it to other places).
4/ Do I have to give the camera an action on the mission start waypoint, like Gimbal 90 deg pitch and take foto, or is that not needed ?
5/ What is the option "Hover and capture imag" & "Images in turnarounds" ?
6/ While surveing, can I operate the camera, or will it abort the mission, as controls would do ?

Thx for you help.
 
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1. It will I believe (others may correct me here), but I use return to launch so to ensure I can get it on the ground at 30% (Ops Manual limitation). RTL brings it back quicker and more accurately than I could on manual. Then I flick it in to angle mode to land.
2. Dunno, just set your survey height in
3. Relative to launch point. You can use the new terrain follow feature to improve this, but you must ensure you've downloaded the relevant map tiles before hand
4. Not need if you wish to use nadir camera angle. Change the gimbal angle in the waypoint before your survey and that gimbal angle will follow through, good for 3d modelling surveys
5. as standard the H520 will capture images as it follows a course at a constant speed. With the possibility of rolling shutter error & motion blur, if you have a small survey then the craft will come to a stop before each image is taken. This significantly decreases the area you can cover per battery, so only use on small surveys. I find that 5 m/s is a fine speed. Images on turnarounds can sometimes suffer from motion blur through turning; your choice if you want these images
6. I haven't tried. Just be careful how you touch the screen as you can send the drone off to where your finger touched it.

If its a big survey then the H520 should allow multi battery mission. I try to keep a mission plan to 3 batteries in case the mission has failed when the craft reconnects to the controller
 
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1. It will I believe (others may correct me here), but I use return to launch so to ensure I can get it on the ground at 30% (Ops Manual limitation). RTL brings it back quicker and more accurately than I could on manual. Then I flick it in to angle mode to land.
2. Dunno, just set your survey height in
3. Relative to launch point. You can use the new terrain follow feature to improve this, but you must ensure you've downloaded the relevant map tiles before hand
4. Not need if you wish to use nadir camera angle. Change the gimbal angle in the waypoint before your survey and that gimbal angle will follow through, good for 3d modelling surveys
5. as standard the H520 will capture images as it follows a course at a constant speed. With the possibility of rolling shutter error & motion blur, if you have a small survey then the craft will come to a stop before each image is taken. This significantly decreases the area you can cover per battery, so only use on small surveys. I find that 5 m/s is a fine speed. Images on turnarounds can sometimes suffer from motion blur through turning; your choice if you want these images
6. I haven't tried. Just be careful how you touch the screen as you can send the drone off to where your finger touched it.

If its a big survey then the H520 should allow multi battery mission. I try to keep a mission plan to 3 batteries in case the mission has failed when the craft reconnects to the controller
Thx already ... Will follow this !
 
No problem. Just remember to set a speed on one of the waypoint settings. If you dont it defaults to max speed, which if on a small site it seems to have really violent acceleration and deceleration at the turn points
 
With reference to 1. I've always worried about the auto return to start to change batteries as my H520 seems to lose the mission (and the plot!) so I save the plan and upload it to the drone if it loses the mission when I manually fly home to change batteries.

Can anyone tell me what SHOULD happen when the battery runs low on a multi battery mission?
 
With reference to 1. I've always worried about the auto return to start to change batteries as my H520 seems to lose the mission (and the plot!) so I save the plan and upload it to the drone if it loses the mission when I manually fly home to change batteries.

Can anyone tell me what SHOULD happen when the battery runs low on a multi battery mission?

And what happens if the Vehicle is out of range ? In my ‘plan’ the maximum distance between me (with the controller) and the H520 would be 1.5 km. I am affraid of comunication-loss also ! Will the drone come back ?
 
In case of signal loss you have different options to configure the failsafe.

1.5km????? I don't know what kind of survey you want to do but I recommend you do it in phases. The wear of the battery with the low battery is not worth it from afar.
 
Hy all,
6/ While surveing, can I operate the camera, or will it abort the mission, as controls would do ?

Thx for you help.
Yes, you can adjust the camera settings while flying the survey.
Flying a survey at 1.5 km sounds like a good way of losing the H520.
 
What camera angle do people find best for 3d renders? Do you fly once and Nadir and then again at a different angle or one flight at an angle?
 
What camera angle do people find best for 3d renders? Do you fly once and Nadir and then again at a different angle or one flight at an angle?

For a mapping exercise I fly the first pass 'Nadir' and fly it at right angles also. I make sure my T/O point is the highest point I can get to where I can land safely (20m clear around). I fly as low as I can, usually 5m above the highest object in the survey area (plus a decent safety margin), this give me incredible detail. For a 3d render I'd fly as above and then again at 45 degress to the original track with a 45 degree camera angle. One recent survey of a derelict site, we were able to identify individual rats i n the corner of a building!

When I first tried this I did the N-S, E-W flights 'Nadir', then I did the same area but flew the site NE-SW, SE-NW with the 45degree camera angle. The third flight was a series (4 to be precise) of concentric flights @ 30degrees camera angle based on the middle of the site, the last of which was 45m outsite the site boundary. When I processed this (all 935 images!) it took Pix4D nearly 12 hours to process, the quality was fantastic but in hindsight way in excess of the clients expectations!
 
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For a mapping exercise I fly the first pass 'Nadir' and fly it at right angles also. I make sure my T/O point is the highest point I can get to where I can land safely (20m clear around). I fly as low as I can, usually 5m above the highest object in the survey area (plus a decent safety margin), this give me incredible detail. For a 3d render I'd fly as above and then again at 45 degress to the original track with a 45 degree camera angle. One recent survey of a derelict site, we were able to identify individual rats i n the corner of a building!

When I first tried this I did the N-S, E-W flights 'Nadir', then I did the same area but flew the site NE-SW, SE-NW with the 45degree camera angle. The third flight was a series (4 to be precise) of concentric flights @ 30degrees camera angle based on the middle of the site, the last of which was 45m outsite the site boundary. When I processed this (all 935 images!) it took Pix4D nearly 12 hours to process, the quality was fantastic but in hindsight way in excess of the clients expectations!
That's 'above' and beyond (excuse the pun) expectations I'm sure! Thank you so much, that's some really invaluable info for us newbies!
 
I still do not get it why Yuneec has removed and seems they are not going to bring back a camera angle for Survey settings.

Logically it would be ideal if you can set up any sets of angles you want your survey to be done with.

Then you start it and a bird flies one survey only doing all set angles in one go so a camera angles changing at each point to required angles before taking a shot from each set angle.

This way it can save on time doing this survey as it will do all required angles in one go.

Or at least as a minimum people can do the same survey but with different angles one at a time like it was in much older version of DataPilot Planner.


What do you think guys about it coming back to DataPilot Planner? The more time is passing and with every update it is still not coming back it is hard to believe we will ever see this again.

P.S. I know we can get around this missing setting with setting a waypoint with a specific angle before a survey but I just cannot see any logic for doing it this way if it can be done and was used as a Survey parameter in older versions of DataPilot Planner.
 
Hi all, did my first (little) survey by means of a test, last friday, and did not feel satified.
The H520 did not return to it's home-point on battery-depletion. I waited it to go down to 20% and initiated the RTL myself. Next, when shutting it down and starting it back up, the question to resume (continue) the mission did not arrive.
Anyone having the same result or suggestions ?

Next, is there a way to have the vehicle keep it's nose to the north, while surveying, and not have it turning and following the lines ? Makes manual stitching easier :)
 
I still do not get it why Yuneec has removed and seems they are not going to bring back a camera angle for Survey settings.
You can always adjust the camera-angle yourself while taking off or, during flight ...
 
For those who want to dig into my survey 'todo', you can find it here !
Will this be realisable ?
 

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Did a very small survey yesterday, on an altitude of 2m, several times, until finally the battery went below 30% to check what will happen. I let it continue and continue. 25% - 20% - 15% ... I was risking a lot :)
Finally at 10% it started comming home againRTL on it's own, and landed on 1%. It shutted down immedialy also. That was scary !

I don't think this is normal behaviour. Return home should be a variable. If it had been 100m furter away from me, it wouldn't have made it !!!
Or, does it calculate it's remaining battery to get home ?
 
Hi X-Fly,

far as I know, there is a so called "Dynymic Home Function" implemented since the last Update. This means depending on Wind, Distance and Height the H520 will calculate the last moment for a safe Coming Home.
And as the accus have at least 1000 mAh more than labeled, the moment he starts coming Home seems to be late, but safe. But Im not sure, if it is good for the health of the accus.

I start do come home (manual or with teh "Return to Launch" button with 20% or max. 16%.


Marc
 
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Did a very small survey yesterday, on an altitude of 2m, several times, until finally the battery went below 30% to check what will happen. I let it continue and continue. 25% - 20% - 15% ... I was risking a lot :)
Finally at 10% it started comming home againRTL on it's own, and landed on 1%. It shutted down immedialy also. That was scary !

I don't think this is normal behaviour. Return home should be a variable. If it had been 100m furter away from me, it wouldn't have made it !!!
Or, does it calculate it's remaining battery to get home ?
At this point the fact that you were flying a small survey is irrelevant and the same as just flying around for fun. You are the PIC of the aircraft and make all decisions for a safe flight. The 520 warned you ( probably at around 30%) that the battery was getting low, you decided to test it. Luckily there is a point that it finally ignores you and makes a safe landing.

The programming is a little different on surveys IF you program a survey to begin with that will take more than 1 battery (the SW will estimate how many batteries it will take), and then during the mission return for a battery change and give you the option to continue the mission. The battery estimate is just that though, an estimate, since altitude, temperature and wind will effect usage.
This is all great progress in the industry. We used to have to time our flights and hope. Then we got live voltage readings, then we got amperage and capacity. Now we have a machine that will actually land at minimums if the pilot ignores all the warnings.
 
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Hi X-Fly,

far as I know, there is a so called "Dynymic Home Function" implemented since the last Update. This means depending on Wind, Distance and Height the H520 will calculate the last moment for a safe Coming Home.
And as the accus have at least 1000 mAh more than labeled, the moment he starts coming Home seems to be late, but safe. But Im not sure, if it is good for the health of the accus.

I start do come home (manual or with teh "Return to Launch" button with 20% or max. 16%.


Marc
I tried that also, 2 weeks ago. When I started RTL myself I could not resume my mission after changing batteries ... Did I do something wrong ?
 

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