I'm checking at DJI specification for Phantom 2 Vision and Phantom 2 Vision plus and also API reference, but I'm not sure wether is it possible to pilot drone without remote controller? How is the communication via SDK done - is smartphone directly communicating with drone, or is going via remote controller?
DJI SDK Level 2 does allow direct flight control of the DJI Phantom 2 Vision+. It communicates the commands to the unit using wifi. That being said, the wifi extender that your phone is connected to is attached to the controller, so you still need the controller to be turned on and in the vicinity in order to operate, but the device is still what is sending the commands to the Phantom. I would recommend that someone always have the controller at the ready incase the wifi network has interference / phone dies etc. I am using the SDK in this way for my side project www.followmephantom.com.
Hope that helps.
FYI - to use the level SDK you first have to submit a proposal for your project to DJI and get their approval..... and pay a fee in most cases.
Here is a helpful link that shows the difference in features for the SDK level 1 and 2.
https://dev.dji.com/en/products/sdk/mobile-sdk/features/level-compare
From 3 weeks of playing: the smart phone controls the gimbal and the camera in general, all the flight controls are strictly from the remote control unit albeit waypoints from the smart phone could be argued as control by the phone. I havent flown it without the smart phone but I am fairly sure I could, without blades on the sitting room floor it seemed possible. I cant imagine why you would want controls from your phone, when things go pear-shaped you would be pretty much screwed with just a touch screen.
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I am useing DJI Mobile SDK to crtate an APP by Android Studio now.I want to know how to use the GPS signal of the aircraft and the phone to realize position control. Is there any API in the DJI Mobile SDK I can use?
You may follow this sample to run simple higher-level GPS position control https://developer.dji.com/mobile-sdk/documentation/ios-tutorials/GSDemo.html
If you stop at some waypoint, it can automatically hold the position. It is a simple recreation of the DJI pilot app waypoint planning.
For low-level GPS position control requires a higher understanding of the system. This usually allows interesting applications such as allow drone to follow some person or precision landing to some mark or circle around some tower. There is not much open-source implementation available on the internet. You have to search in the MSDK for the API for some basic control and you also need to have deep understanding in the field that you are trying to achieve e.g real-time object detection, low-level control framework, Visual-Inertial SLAM etc
Can we see analytics just by connecting to beacons ( beacons who are not actually STICK to the walls ) through estimote app ?
Due to pandemic in India it is not possible to go to the office now . I have a development kit of proximity beacons and I need to develop a simple project out of it.
So should i travel and bring that kit to home and develop an app using some already available templates and later on return it to the office so that once we resume after 5-6 months we can stick them to the wall and play around it.
Please let me know, I have read every article but can't find anything about it.
You will need to bring the kit home, enable the beacons so they are transmitting (which means the battery will start being used), register them with Estimote, and then use a mobile phone in the vicinity of the beacons with an app running the Estimote SDK. You may install the beacons in their permanent location at a later time.
I am new to the drone community. I am trying to use a drone to follow a driving vehicle and record a video, this would be part of my graduate school project.
I know DJI provides an "active track" function but it seems like the maximum speed for the tracking is around 20-25 mph, and it cannot track the vehicle at a top-down angle (drone looks straight down at the vehicle).
I have an idea to send the GPS info of the ego vehicle to my mobile device and use a customized app to read the GPS location and set it as a target so the drone can follow it.
Is it doable? Is it in general worth the effort? Or is it better off to just use the active track and work with the best angle that I can get?
I've done that.
Send gps updates from a tracker phone to the phone connected to rc.
You have to use virtualstick mode in the MSDK. Tha max speed is 15m/s
Virtual stick functions in the DJI Mobile SDK simulate the remote controller's joysticks, and therefore an aircraft can be automated to fly in any way a human can manually fly it. Compared to missions, this is a more complicated, but flexible way to automate flight.
Works very well.
An example:
https://youtu.be/i3axYfIOHTY?t=55
It's a little shaky, but thats fixed now :-)
Maybe I have't looked hard enough, but I spent yesterday googling for a bit and found no relevant projects on hacking the DJI Phantom Drone in order to create new coordinating apps. This is besides the app for coordination DJI currently uses for their drone. I'm trying to see if there's a way to communicate with the Drone with a specific protocol in order to accept a set of procedures.
Any help would be awesome,
Thanks.
Great News for you and all us Droneys! DJI has launched their SDK since you asked this question. They released it last November and you can now apply for a license and write your own apps for the Phantom2 Vision+ using their SDK.
Check it out at https://developer.dji.com/
I am already building a project using the SDK - you can follow my progress on my blog / product site. I will also try to update it with good DJI related development links and tips.
This post is old but I think it is good to leave a foot print for others :)
There is this new company called NVdrones, which created a peace of hardware that you can attach to any drone (you need physical access to the flight controller), and once you do that you can use their SDK (Arduino, Java, Android and Javascript) to write your app without the need of hacking, soldering or anything else. It is just plug and play.
Another benefit is that you are not locked with a specific drone (DJI SDK or 3DRobotics SDK), you can use the board on anything you want. Which gives lots of flexibility.
The developer site is http://developers.NVdrones.com
Hope this helps.
This is a great topic!
You could check how to hack your copter here: https://github.com/flyver/Flyver-SDK/wiki/-2.2--How-To:-Flyver-Hack-a-Copter
By opening the drone, taking out the original controller, soldering a few wires and sticking an Android phone to it, you will have the ability to program your Phantom in a modern manner with an open source SDK and application based development. This means that you could add computer vision to it, automation or additional hardware. You could also use smartphones, web and other interactive devices for remote controlling the copter instead of using the standard remote controls.
The Phantom, however, is offcenter balanced due to the fact that most people use gimbal with it. Without the gimbal is a lot less stable from my experiments so you will have to put some extra work in center balancing it.
I'd interested in sending data from one WP7 to another WP7 phone so I could create 2 player games. If I understand correctly most WP7 will support bluetooth, but its not in the minimum spec, is this correct? What API's can I use to access the bluetooth, any good examples of this out there?
Unfortunately Microsoft don't provide any access to the bluetooth stack via any documented APIs in this version of the Dev tools.
They don't seem to have any sense of urgency about fixing this (or any of the many other missing features), so I wouldn't expect the situation to change any time soon.