DJI Phantom Autonomous Flight New Ground Station

DJI Phantom Autonomous Flight New Ground Station

One of the most popular consumer quadcopters on the market now is a true unmanned aircraft. DJI Phantom Autonomous Flight recently pushed updates to applications that helped control its flagship Phantom 2 Vision, and now, a $ 1000 aircraft can fly missions independently.

 Seriously, you just say where to go, and that goes all by itself.DJI Phantom Autonomous Flight New Ground Station

DJI Phantom Autonomous Flight Brings New Features to Ground Station

This new feature is called Ground Station. After updating the Vision application for your iPhone or Android smartphone, now you have the ability to switch up to 16 GPS waypoints. 

This number is on the pin on the map that the DJI Phantom Autonomous Flight drone will carry on its autonomous flight. Then, press "Go" in the application, and hum connect the dots. At any time on the flight, you press "Back home", and the drone will fly back to you. The aircraft can fly 3.1 miles on a flight, although it must remain within a quarter of a mile from the pilot.

This is a pretty exciting update. This feature is mainly designed to help amateur drone pilots when shooting, not flying. If you have ever used Phantom or other consumer drones, you will know that it is rather difficult to keep the object high and watch the camera at the same time. After all, at any time in the Phantom automatic flight, you can take over and direct the plane with the flip switch.

Of course, it remains to be seen how effective the Ground Station feature will be. Sounds good but also quite simple. What if there is a tree on your programmed flight path? The Phantom might hit him and break into a dozen pieces. 

What if you run out of battery? Well, DJI really thinks about it and the Phantom will automatically fly back to the pilot when it drops to 30 percent.DJI Phantom Autonomous Flight New Ground Station

One thing is certain, though. Technology is advancing to the point where the debate about whether to call a hobby drone or a drone is excessive. Looking ahead, all drones can be autonomous. Or at least they have a choice.

Ground Station started a while ago as a stand-alone iPad application. The big news is now also included as part of the free iOS / Android Vision application, which allows users of Phantom 2 Vision and Vision + to control and view real-time videos from their quadcopter cameras via their smartphones.

By using the Ground Station feature in the latest version of the application, users can draw up to 16 pins to their current location map, a pin that shows the GPS waypoint so that the helicopter can be launched on its flight. It is also possible to set the height for each of these waypoints, along with the speed of the aircraft when it reaches them.

After everything is programmed, pressing the "Go" button on the screen will make Phantom launch itself and carry out its mission independently. The application will notify the user if the drone battery level drops to the point where the flight cannot be completed. If that happens, you might send the helicopter back to the takeoff point by pressing the "Back home" button, plus the user can regain manual control at any time.

Set up using Ground Station can reach a length of 5.0 km (5 km), with a maximum height of 656 feet (200 m) and a maximum distance of 1,640 feet (500 m) from the controller.DJI Phantom Autonomous Flight New Ground Station

The new version of the DJI Vision application is available through the App Store or Google Play, and requires users to download the latest flight control firmware to their Phantom 2 Vision or Vision +. The Ground Station function is shown in the video below.