Autopilot+Spark - Flight Mode switch on RC

[mick92780]

I haven't flown with Autopilot yet. I'm still learning. In the Hangar Flight School, under 1.1 Overriding Autopilot, it says, "Critical: To override Autopilot, toggle the Flight Mode switch to the appropriate setting for your aircraft type (S for the Phantom 4 and Mavic, P for all others). Then fly the aircraft using the Remote Control."

The Spark RC's Flight Mode Switch goes from P(normal flight) to S(Sport mode)

Does the quote above imply that I should use Autopilot in S mode on the RC, and then flip the Flight Mode switch from S to P if I want to do an emergency override of Autopilot?

The documentation wasn't definitive about that.

Thanks to anyone who cares to take a run at that.

 

[mick92780]

Well, I just had my first flight with the Spark and Autopilot.

I did a zip line from one end of my street to the other at 120 feet while keeping the gimbal/camera focus on my house. It worked as advertised.

One surprise: once I engaged Autopilot, and it counted down from 5 and flew the Spark up to Point A, I expected it would then just proceed to Point B without my intervention. It did not. I looked at the app and saw "Fly to Point B" in purple letters. I pressed it, and it then executed the maneuver, flawlessly as far as I can tell.

After it was done it just hung in the air at Point B. I pressed disengage and flew the bird back to me.

The RC mode switch was in P the whole time. So then, does that mean, given my original question in this thread that when I want to do an emergency override of Autopilot I would move the slider to S?

I guess I will try that and answer my own question.

One other thought: it's a mighty odd feeling to watch your drone flying under computer control. Mostly cool, but also a little unsettling.

 

[6r50cfu]

...when I want to do an emergency override of Autopilot I would move the slider to S?

I guess I will try that and answer my own question.

Please let us know what you find out!

 

[mick92780]

This came in this morning from Hangar:

HI Mick,
Thank you for your interest in Autopilot. To use Autopilot with your Spark your remote must be in P mode. To override Autopilot, please switch your remote controller to S mode.
I hope this helps!
Have a great day,

So there it is. I will try the emergency override today just to see how it works.

 

[mick92780]

I tried it just now and the emergency override feature worked perfectly.

Just flip the Mode switch on the RC from P to S and the Spark halts immediately, hovering and waiting for you to fly it back to you. Worked great.

 

[notime]

Well, I just had my first flight with the Spark and Autopilot.

I did a zip line from one end of my street to the other at 120 feet while keeping the gimbal/camera focus on my house. It worked as advertised.

One surprise: once I engaged Autopilot, and it counted down from 5 and flew the Spark up to Point A, I expected it would then just proceed to Point B without my intervention. It did not. I looked at the app and saw "Fly to Point B" in purple letters. I pressed it, and it then executed the maneuver, flawlessly as far as I can tell.

After it was done it just hung in the air at Point B. I pressed disengage and flew the bird back to me.

The RC mode switch was in P the whole time. So then, does that mean, given my original question in this thread that when I want to do an emergency override of Autopilot I would move the slider to S?

I guess I will try that and answer my own question.

One other thought: it's a mighty odd feeling to watch your drone flying under computer control. Mostly cool, but also a little unsettling.

Have not heard of auto pilot, how do you activate it and where can I get more info on this auto pilot?

 

[plingboot]

Nice report, thanks.
I've used autopilot to good effect with my Inspire, but I've been holding off to see how other people have got on with it and the Spark.
The Go app's quick shots are great, but i think the control offered by Autopilot makes for better results.

 

[The Editor]

Have not heard of auto pilot, how do you activate it and where can I get more info on this auto pilot?

Hmmmm.....let's see now

LMGTFY

 

[mick92780]

Hmmmm.....let's see now

LMGTFY

You have more patience than I do. Good on ya'.

 

[sdharris]

Have not heard of auto pilot, how do you activate it and where can I get more info on this auto pilot?

Autopilot - Hangar

 

[sdharris]

One surprise: once I engaged Autopilot, and it counted down from 5 and flew the Spark up to Point A, I expected it would then just proceed to Point B without my intervention. It did not.

This is normal, with zip line it takes the most direct route to the point when first engaged, if you enable intermediate or advanced you can also use a slider to define where between point a and b you want it to stop. The slider or fly to point a/b is a great way of repeating the flight to get the perfect shot. Zipline is still probably my most used mode, combine that with tracking of your handset/operator you can get some really great results.

If you used waypoints on the other hand it would fly to the first point then proceed along the route.

 

[Rcc]

Does anybody have the same issue like me, since the iPhone updated to ios11, and the AP updated too, the flight dashboard have no image from camera or it only show after a while, need to open the dji go 4 first then AP the image come back again, don’t know why, it wasn’t like that before. Thanks

 

[mick92780]

Zipline is still probably my most used mode, combine that with tracking of your handset/operator you can get some really great results.

Good to know. I will experiment with that.

Can I ask you to expand on, "combine that with tracking of your handset/operator" Not sure what you mean but I like the sound of it.

 

[sdharris]

Good to know. I will experiment with that.

Can I ask you to expand on, "combine that with tracking of your handset/operator" Not sure what you mean but I like the sound of it.

Once you start to use intermediate or advanced you can change the focus strategy which is what the camera points at not camera focusing and set it to operator, which will track the GPS coordinates of your phone or tablet provided it has GPS. Combine that with their other free airspace app you can track another phone sending GPS data over its data network to your phone. Think walking along a beach or if someone else is driving filming a car on a sweeping country bend.

I've done both using Autopilot but only have an example on youtube from a very early beta test of Autopilot and a Phantom 3 focusing on the operator while orbiting. Focus strategy works in many of their flight modes.

If you don't want to focus on the operator you can use POI, direction etc.

 

[mick92780]

Got it. Thank you.

 

[Steve A]

Newbie question..at what point do you turn on autopilot and/or turn off dji go?

 

[julian46]

I think you can actually just launch in AutoPilot w/o running GO at all and start flying - you should not have them both running (one in foreground and one sleeping in background) / (as you've likely seen mentioned elsewhere) - what I like to do is start GO on the first battery and fly around for a few mins making sure all is good including home point then land - force close it (IOS) and start and fly with AutoPilot - a few times AP has lost communication with the Spark and I've had to force close it and start go (with the Spark in the Air) (likely best to have the Spark on the ground when switching from one app to another while it is still powered on - but if you have to force close AP and launch GO to recover don't panic - the Spark will sit there and hover nicely) - also if you move the flight mode button to SPORT its supposed to stop the current mission and return control to the sticks (in computer flight modes) / so for normal AutoPilot operation just leave the flight mode switch in P (left position) and use SPORT to stop the current mission if you need to abort - otherwise you can do this on the screen - at the prompt on the bottom

 

[Steve A]

Brill
Thanks

 

[mick92780]

if you move the flight mode button to SPORT its supposed to stop the current mission and return control to the sticks

I have done this maneuver, (switch from P to S on the RC for emergency override of the current mission,) and it works perfectly.

 

[RJA]

Old thread I know but I am looking for some help with Autopilot. I ran my first spark orbit mission the other day around a burnt out Park Shelter. I pre-planned the mission on my tablet and headed over to the shelter. I have been using OTG with DJI GO4 so I set it up with Autopilot. It worked just fine when I launched the AC and did a few spins around the park. Video transmission was excellent and connection was good at least 3x as far out as my planned flight.

So I brought the AC back close to the planned starting point and engaged the mission. The software immediately gave me a RC override message. Tried again thinking I touched something, same message.

Landed the AC and disconnected the OTG cable and relaunched, the mission ran fine. So I am curious, as to why and is there a way to keep my OTG cable connected? I like it because it forces the 2.4 GHZ and I don't need to change in manually each time.

Here is a link to the video, I did not find the orbit camera work as smooth as I would have liked especially about halfway through the video. There was some wind but not that much. Hopefully that gets ironed out with the software. Thanks in advance for any insight regarding the OTG cable.