Swap "follow me" between Wizard and main controller mid-flight?

Reportographer · May 2, 2017

Hey guys,

I am interested in buying a drone that will follow cyclists that I can't keep up with myself. I am considering doing this with the Typhoon H using the Wizard to follow the cyclists with the follow me function. My concern is that the drone will run out of battery far away from me and not return to me but instead follow the cyclist with the Wizard.

Is there a way to have the Typhoon H follow the Wizard but then return to home where I have the full controller? Or maybe a way to change the controls from following the Wizard to being controlled by the main controller mid-flight?

Maybe I am just inexperienced and there is a better way to follow cyclists that you guys might suggest. I am new to the drone game but I know I am considering either the Typhoon H or the Phantom 4 pro. Trying to see which one accomplishes what I need it to do best.

Thank you!

Vegasrobbi · May 2, 2017

My experience with the H is it will only bind controls with one controller at a time, you must land and rearm to transfer control to a different controller.

While bound to the Wizard you have camera control with the ST16. You can also use two ST16's.

Has anyone else noted we now have telemetry on the ST16 while bound to the Wizard? It's really nice to see the battery voltage and Sat count on the controller rather than guess.

While using the Wizard you have dynamic RTH so if you lost signal the H would return to the Wizard not the ST16.

I believe SDK's supported remote follow but DJI sucks at follow and I don't trust SDK's. You may be able to use DJI Active Track to achieve your goals. AT visually tracks the subject but you remain in control.

My first choice would be Solo, by far the best autonomous drone IMO but stuck with a GoPro. I believe Solex now supports remote follow with multiple devices.

Steve Carr · May 3, 2017

You don't mention how fast, how far, how long? If you want the aircraft to return to you then you essentially cut the distance in half.
Also you need to consider terrain. Will you be going up and down hills?

The H will follow altitude changes when used with the Wizard. It's best to maintain at least 50' AGL but if there are trees along the route then higher is better. The altitude following feature isn't spot on because it uses a barometer in both units.

Active Track does not follow altitude and will get confused it the vehicle goes thru trees or around a corner near a building. Whatever method you chose, some short practice runs will be needed to fine tune the process. This is not something you would attempt with a machine right out of the box.

Vegasrobbi · May 3, 2017

Steve Carr said:
You don't mention how fast, how far, how long? If you want the aircraft to return to you then you essentially cut the distance in half.
Also you need to consider terrain. Will you be going up and down hills?

The H will follow altitude changes when used with the Wizard. It's best to maintain at least 50' AGL but if there are trees along the route then higher is better. The altitude following feature isn't spot on because it uses a barometer in both units.

Active Track does not follow altitude and will get confused it the vehicle goes thru trees or around a corner near a building. Whatever method you chose, some short practice runs will be needed to fine tune the process. This is not something you would attempt with a machine right out of the box.

Yep, Active track is useless for me; watch some of my videos AT can be dangerous. AT will correct altitude "up", but not down, using downward facing VPS, it does a pretty good job below 10 meters. Forget about anything above 10 meters though.

AT is affected by obstructions, distance and speed, TBH it sucks and I relegated my P4 to back up to my H and Solo.

As far as 50 feet

Let's just say I got my H back from CS recently and the tech mentioned there were scratches on the bottom of the camera like it touched the ground lol.

Here's a recent video I shot with my H and Solo, the H does a great ob following; I must say I tied the ND4 filter on this day and the results were not very good.