Autonomous flight & part 107

[philsmith76]

So I was reading a article Kespry Announces New Drone-Based Inspection Capabilities Enabling Insurance Roof Claim Decisions in As Little As One Hour - sUAS News - The Business of Drones

the article has statements from a what seems to be Kespry user named Jim Grabowski of Frontline Insurance. I searched for a Pilot Certificate at Search Airmen Certificate Information
for Jim or James Grabowski and found none. Perhaps he has a different legal name but that makes me curious.

About Kespry
and their one size fits all solution for inspection Aerial Mapping Software | Drone Mapping Software | Kespry

This makes me think about all this marketing and statements about “one click” inspections. Where’s the certified pilot in command? They state on their site “no joysticks.....No piloting.” Sooo what happens when it looses gps and there are no controls? Or looses WiFi link to the fancy tablet?
Things are changing fast!

 

[R.Perry]

With Drone Deploy or Litchi if it loses GPS it will most likely just hover until you take control, I'm not sure of that since have never lost GPS. You can always cancel autonomous flight at any time. The flight is loaded into the drone, once deployed it needs no interaction with the controller.
Lose of tablet is a very good reason to never fly out of visual range. I have had to cancel autonomous flights twice, and each time the drone instantly canceled and returned control to the controller.
I suppose the worse case scenario would be to lose GPS and the controller, in that case the drone would lose it's home point, and would not be able to complete it's programmed flight.
I don't know, but I have a feeling it would stop and hover until the batteries died, or may just land. That is probably a good question for the developers to answer.

 

[philsmith76]

Lose gps on the aircraft and unfortunately there is no hover in place since it dosent have a clue where it is. I have had my p4p lose gps and snap into atti, that’s a hair raising experience. But managed if prepared. Atmospheric conditions can always cause havoc and having a pilot in command with a controller will always be a advantage.

 

[MapMaker53]

It would be nice if it could continue the mission and return back to home point even if it lost GPS. I knows it's home point when it takes off, and software should be able to kick into a mode that calculates the distances and angles required to traverse from each programmed lat/long point to the next, assuming the first two points flown had GPS connectivity for accurate orientation. It's on my wish list.

 

[R.Perry]

It would be nice if it could continue the mission and return back to home point even if it lost GPS. I knows it's home point when it takes off, and software should be able to kick into a mode that calculates the distances and angles required to traverse from each programmed lat/long point to the next, assuming the first two points flown had GPS connectivity for accurate orientation. It's on my wish list.

Your drone is dependent on GPS to fly an autonomous flight, It would have no way of knowing where home point was without GPS. That is why flying in bad weather isn't a good idea, especially if there is electrical activity such as lightning in the area. Before I fly any mapping or waypoint flights I always make sure I have good strong GPS signals. I keep my controller in my hands the entire time it is flying an autonomous flight and never fly it out of sight. Switching to ATTI is no problem if you keep in mind that could happen at any moment and paying close attention.

 

[skiptv]

As to searching whether Jim has a Remote Pilots Certificate or not. When you pass your test you are issued a temp certificate, good for 120 days, it provides you with all the benefits of a permenant Remote License. However your name is not listed in the Airmen Certificate Information site.

 

[philsmith76]

Good point. That is correct about it not being listed right away.

Wondering what happens with autonomous flight and see and avoid. Say someone pushes a button on a tablet to start a inspection like Kespry says and a heli comes by at 100’ with no controls what happens?

 

[MapMaker53]

Autonomous flights are still supposed to be flown within sight. If a heli comes along, you just cancel the mission and take over control.

 

[Moosewax]

IMO anyone who claims to have an easy "one button" solution for data collection using a drone is likely in marketing.

Want to know how you can tell when someone in marketing is lying to you?

Their lips are moving.

 

[R Martin]

So I was reading a article Kespry Announces New Drone-Based Inspection Capabilities Enabling Insurance Roof Claim Decisions in As Little As One Hour - sUAS News - The Business of Drones

the article has statements from a what seems to be Kespry user named Jim Grabowski of Frontline Insurance. I searched for a Pilot Certificate at Search Airmen Certificate Information
for Jim or James Grabowski and found none. Perhaps he has a different legal name but that makes me curious.

About Kespry
and their one size fits all solution for inspection Aerial Mapping Software | Drone Mapping Software | Kespry

This makes me think about all this marketing and statements about “one click” inspections. Where’s the certified pilot in command? They state on their site “no joysticks.....No piloting.” Sooo what happens when it looses gps and there are no controls? Or looses WiFi link to the fancy tablet?
Things are changing fast!

fyi: 96% of my flights are autonomous. One click and the UAS flies the flight profile I configured it to fly. I am there in case something goes wrong. Aside from pre-flight and the one click to send it on its way, everything is internal. Boring? Yes. Extremely accurate for mapping and 3D topography though. Humans just don't possess the accuracy to fly a mapping profile as accurately as the auto"pilot".
For the record, I have had two incidents in the past two years. Both were GPS signal losses and the UAS did exactly what it was supposed to do without any manual input required. It finished the flight plan sans images (they are based upon GPS coordinates).

 

[R.Perry]

fyi: 96% of my flights are autonomous. One click and the UAS flies the flight profile I configured it to fly. I am there in case something goes wrong. Aside from pre-flight and the one click to send it on its way, everything is internal. Boring? Yes. Extremely accurate for mapping and 3D topography though. Humans just don't possess the accuracy to fly a mapping profile as accurately as the auto"pilot".
For the record, I have had two incidents in the past two years. Both were GPS signal losses and the UAS did exactly what it was supposed to do without any manual input required. It finished the flight plan sans images (they are based upon GPS coordinates).

I'm a little confused, you are saying that you lost GPS but your drone finished the mission without GPS, when it is dependent on GPS to fly it's mission. Am I missing something here, that just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[R Martin]

I'm a little confused, you are saying that you lost GPS but your drone finished the mission without GPS, when it is dependent on GPS to fly it's mission. Am I missing something here, that just doesn't make sense to me.

GPS is required to trigger the shutter. It still flew the flight plan. Just didn't take any images.

 

[Earnest Ward]

GPS is required to trigger the shutter. It still flew the flight plan. Just didn't take any images.

I think the point R. Perry was raising (and I'm still wondering about) is: the flight plan consists of a series of waypoints. If the GPS that sets the photo capture positions (a type of waypoint) is lost, how does the sUAS identify/navigate to the remaining course waypoints? Is the aircraft equipped with an inertial navigation system too?

 

[Dave Pitman]

No GPS, no autonomous flying. What happened is the drone dropped control signal and continued to fly the autonomous mission as it should. It could not have lost gps. If R.Martin was using Map Pilot to fly the mission, in it's normal mode it requires a control signal and connection to the smart device to capture images but not to fly the mission. It does have an option to capture imagery without a control signal but that is not the default setting. Not sure if DD requires control signal to capture imagery.

 

[R Martin]

I'm a little confused, you are saying that you lost GPS but your drone finished the mission without GPS, when it is dependent on GPS to fly it's mission. Am I missing something here, that just doesn't make sense to me.

Do not have an explanation for it. All I can venture is that it lost contact and reacquired fast enough that it didn't dump the flight plan but it did mess up the image timing and it stopped taking images.
I was using Pix4d Capture.

 

[Dave Pitman]

I was using Pix4d Capture.

It seems that Pix4D Capture also relies on a live signal connection at all times in order to capture images unless you select "safe mode" in Advanced settings. In the last year it looks like many have had problems with that from looking on their support forum.

Picture capture fail

All of the control apps providing any kind of waypoint mission depend on GPS.

 

[UAV_Mapper]

I was using Pix4d Capture

That app has been completely unstable for us and we've documented photo loss in the best of conditions. It has flown entire missions happily clicking away and displaying captured image locations, but less than half (or sometimes none) were actually on the SD card. It seems to be very unstable on iOS devices, but OK on Android. It has been so bad that I can't trust it for any important missions. If we do use it, it's used as a secondary or tertiary app when we have time and batteries to kill. I'm hoping that one of the updates makes it usable because it does have a few nice features and the UI is easy to use.

 

[R.Perry]

I use DD for mapping and it has been pretty reliable other than creating new maps. I had another issue with DD and contacted them. I was told if I lose ALL gps the drone will go into ATTI and return control to the controller, and would not be able to continue the mission. Momentary loss of GPS (couple seconds) will not cause a return to ATTI or disengage the mapping.

I think the key is to always fly as though you were going to lose GPS at any moment and be ready to take immediate control. I admit that I don't keep the controller in my had every moment but it is hanging from my harness.

I fly a pattern with Litchi every week to do a video. The flight is close to buildings and other structures and it is autonomous, but I hold on to the controller like it was going to lose GPS any moment. I don't know if I can post the video on here or not.