Waypoint missions are jerky and not smooth

General Discussion
1

I am trying to create a WP mission where one drone follows another at close range over the course, filming the lead drone from behind & below.
I am finding it very difficult to acieve a smooth result. The lead drone appears to do a lot of stops and starts, speed is jerky and uneven, making the result not so pleasing. I have tried with the follower drone flown manually, flown with an identical mission but at different height, and with a delay between starts.

I have 3 theories why this is happening:

  1. Litchi just isn’t accurate enough to achieve this type of mission with smooth enough flight.

  2. The lead drone (Mavic Mini) gets blown around too much for a smooth flight because it’s so light.

  3. The vsc on which both drones rely (the other drone is an Air 2S) just has too much delay in correcting for wind and whatnot, that smooth flights are just not achievable at this level.

Now, if 2 and/or 3 are the issue, this could be fixed by using heavier more powerful drones, and/or by using older drones using the Go4 app, where the vsc delay is eliminated. Such as Phantoms or Mavic 1/2 series.

I don’t know, just reaching out to the community to see if anyone with more experience has managed this and how they did it.

Thanks

2

I would expect its mainly down to 2 & 3 with a little of 1 thrown in for good measure (1 being more down to GPS accuracy than litchi itself)

2 Likes
3

I agree with @Martin_Reading … mainly 2 & 3.

There could also be factors like mission design, location, etc that can cause some stops and starts.

Mission design: Straight path vs Curved, Cruising Speed, even the shape of the mission (gentle curve vs sharp angles)

Location: Terrain (flat, hilly, etc), cell towers or other interference.

Try something simple (straight path to begin with), then add more factors to see what affects it the most.

4

Yes I tried to make it super simple. All WP at 30 m height, all over water, 14 km/h constant speed, all turns curved with 10m radius. Just a simple pentagon really.
I have never tried Litchi with a Go4 drone (never owned one), so I’m considering buying an old Mavic Pro or maybe Mavic 2 Zoom/Pro just to see if vsc is the biggest culprit here.
Thanks for the input!

1 Like
5

Check out a guy on YouTube called “dirtybird”, he is the master of the “follow me”, technique, thats if they’ve not been taken down because of regulation

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6

regulation changes e.g. vls.

7

It was his vids that made me dive deeper into this :wink:

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8

You might want to check this out and his video. He links an article from Tribar with a video.

Can I improve on this Jerky Video <<<

Hope it helps.

9

Thanks. It seems he is experiencing excactly the same thing. Unfortunately the thread does not point to any reliable way to mitigate the problem.
Flying very slowly on a super calm day maybe? If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to buy an old Mavic 2, or save up for a Mavic 3 or Air 3…

10

I believe that the stops and starts, as well as the jerky speed, is because of bad communication interference between the Mobile phone and the Drone.
Thus, the importance to have a good signal but in CE Countries that is a Problem.
It would be nice if Litchi could transfer the mission to the drone totally, the moment, we press Start Mission.
Unfortunately, the moment the drone is a little thither away and it loses signal, it starts to wonder while looking for a signal.
Yes, GPS signal is also important and if it’s a bit cloudy we do find some interferences as well.
You can analyse your flight path in AirData.com info.

11

That would be nice. However, when DJI releases a drone that does not provide on-board waypoints, Litchi has no choice but to send the flight commands in real-tiime using “virtual sticks”.

3 Likes
12

I went ahead and made a video about it.

3 Likes
13

This is an excellent video describing the issue and the possible solutions. You mentioned everything I would have mentioned had I created something like this.

When I’m flying missions using my Air 2s that I will need to merge together later, I alway fly each component several times because each produces a slightly different result.

Thank you for creating this.

1 Like
14

Thank you so much Wes!