I plan on doing a mapping mission on a large area.
The issue is that looking at the property on foot and on Google Earth, there is variability in elevation of about 140 feet AGL, not including consideration of the elevation of the trees.
I am using an Evo 2 Pro V2 to do the mapping mission. I know that the Explorer App uses the Home location to set the altitude.
I don’t need more detail than can be provided by about 2 cm GSD.
With 4 batteries, my preliminary calculations suggest I can complete the entire mission in about an hour without having to wait to recharge one of the batteries.
In consideration of the variability in elevation, what is the best way to go about planning the mission? I plan on using a rectangle in the interest of simplifying the mission. But, doing so limits the starting position to only 4 locations accomplished by simply flipping the rectangle 45 degrees and changing the length and width.
The starting point, therefore, is NOT going to be at either the highest or lowest elevation. So, how to go about picking the correct altitude in mission planning to account for the highest and lowest elevations not being at the starting point?
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This is on my request list with Autel. Terrain following is VERY important to cm-level mapping. I flew a golf course that could have been 3 setups ended up being 7 because of the lack of TA. The best I was able to do on most of the holes was setup at the mean elevation and keep it +/- 40ft AGL. It worked very well but it was an RTK drone.
I am retired but have developed an interest in creating a drone business but not real estate…mapping and inspections. I realize I should either purchased a DJI because of all the 3rd party support or the RTK. Apparently, for 1600, there is a PPK module available. From what I understand, there might be some advantages to PPK over RTK…although I might just get another drone.
I just purchased the Evo II Pro in August. Try as I might, various settings, after getting out of beginner mode, I can’t do cinematic, controlled shots like manual orbit. (The Intelligent Precision Mode is too slow.)
Drone Deploy while I am finding to be very easy to use, does not offer a fix for terrain following. There is a software solution in which you make a flight plan and upload it for use in the Waypoint Intelligent flight mode. However, I have still not been able to figure it out!
Drone Deploy is such a great tool. I wish they would create some fix for this issue.
Just a couple things for clarification. All the additional flight modes are in Manual flight in Autel Explorer.
DroneDeploy does have terrain following with the officially supported drones but Autel Explorer doesn’t. This and corridor flight have been requested.