This short video shows a very low fly over soybean during harvest, the copter is in Pos Hold so altitude is controlled by the SF11,
it was a windy day so the copter flies diagonally to wind and I don't use gimbal for my task (less flying time)
It's interesting too that, with unstable windy conditions, mantain stable altitude.
Replies
Thx, that would be extremely useful for agriculture usage. Let us know when the product will be ready with this feature.
Laser Developer said:
That keeps my attention that the copter not raise a step when move over soybean as it does when moved over tall green grass :O ; that looks interesting too because, when you have green crop you try to cover the hole soil but, when crop dry, sometimes you have "holes" with no or less plants and become a trouble if the laser read that "holes" I hope.
@Hugues - the SF11 doesn't have any special filtering for preferential ground detection. However, based on statistical probability, the narrow laser beam hits closer to ground level more often than it hits the top of plants as long as the drone is moving. The data is then filtered in the flight software control loop leading to a preference for ground (or close to ground) as the measured distance.
This might not be the case if the plants have dense foliage where the probability of hitting the top of the plant exceeds the probability of hitting the ground. In our next generation of laser altimeters we will be including selectable filter options that can be biased towards either the ground or the tops of plants depending upon the requirements of the application.
It's a mystery, :O looks in the other video that the laser recognized a grass step http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A2283...
perhaps Laserdeveloper can clarificate better how it know?
Hugues said:
So how does the lidar know that is is at the altitude from the ground and not from the top of the crop plants ?
Thank's guys, next step is fly over a dry corn :) ; I hope, the secret to work is that little delay and smooth response in altitude changes to fly over crops, It has many configurations to change but, up to now, standard ones are perfect for this task :)
that small of a quad copter is going to have some problem with wind . Most flight software like ruby , eagletree and pixhawk should have a mode for helping to steady the copter in wind .
Excellent work as usual Cala, it is astonishing how well the SF11 handles such a broken and uneven surface at such a low altitude. I hope the damaged crop wasn't too much of a problem for you!