Doubtful Experience with Air2-S: Waypoints, POI and Orbit

[Marian_Carton]

DJI-Air2-S
Lichtchi-Beta: v4.26.3_BETA-g Build 300004395

So far I’ve been using a Phantom 3Adv. flown. Smartphone was always a Sony Xperia XZ-2. The Litchi app was the result of world-class, Hollywood-ready flights that I was also able to market. The disillusionment came with my new DJI-Air2-S: It doesn’t matter whether it’s waypoints, POI or follow me… The drone flew extremely imprecisely and strong course corrections made the recordings unusable. Now I’ve switched to a Sony Xperia 1 III, the flight results have been significantly better: Follow me now works perfectly! The orbit mode works very badly, very imprecise flight behavior of the drone!. POI works reasonably well, still not as good as it used to be with the Phantom 3Adv. Waypoints are still pretty bad! Although everything is set to soft, turns to 100%, the drone sometimes makes unnecessary and annoying course corrections. And with perfect conditions: no wind, only 4 waypoints and about 20m distance. I would be very happy if the bugs could be fixed with a next update. It is also important to point out the importance of a powerful smartphone.

[Sam_G]

Welcome @Marian_Carton ,

The difference between your Phantom 3 and your Air 2S is Onboard Waypoint Support (for the Phantom)
and Virtual Stick Control (for the Air 2S). No update to the Litchi app will ever make those differences go away. Its a result of DJI and the design of their drones.

Read this post. It will help explain more than I can here.

VIRTUAL STICK COMMANDS (vsc)

Virtual Stick Commands are control signals constantly send from the remote controller to the drone (stick simulations), and feedback signals constantly send from the drone to the remote controller. They depend heavily on a Constant Good control signal. DJI Drones that are build for the DJI Fly App are controlled by VSC during waypoint missions. (Mini-1-2-SE, Air-2-2S & (Mavic-3, Mini-3)) Older DJI drones are not, they fly by themselves. They also have an extra AIRCRAFT Setting: “Exit Waypoi…

[Marian_Carton]

Thanks for your quick answer!
I’m aware of the difference, but it doesn’t explain the bad results from Orbit mode or the not-so-good results from POI mode.

[Sam_G]

I beg to differ, but it explains everything about your results.
VSC drones are controlled by signals from the controller … every movement.
Instead of the drone thinking for itself, it relies on the control signal from the controller and its connected device.

[Marian_Carton]

Okay, that’s all very convincing. Thank you for your explanation. Still, I wonder if Litchi can’t optimize that. Optimize the latency times? If course corrections need to be made, interpolate them better (softer)?
Because the way it is now, it’s quite frustrating!

[Steve_Amerson]

@Marian_Carton The older drones that use DJI Go and Go4 apps are still the best ones to use for stable, mostly predictable behavior (discounting GPS variations). As far as updates fixing the missing “Onboard Missions” with Fly App (VSC) drones, it has happened to the Mavic 3 Enterprise drones, so it may be possible, if not probable.