Optical Flow

[Ian [P13]]

Optical Flow works on Arducopter now and works fine on the Solo, Philip Rowse was flying with the optical flow throughout NAB. In the past 3DR has sold optical flow solutions around or slightly under $100 but these aren't as polished as people would expect a retail Solo add-on to be, so I'm >guessing< at a slightly sub $200 price...

I suspect 3DR are currently focusing all their energy on getting GoPro controls out and improving the gimbal software. There's a lot of software considerations when flying inside, for example you'd want RTL disabled, so optical flow will need a lot of testing before being sold as it's going to be in the hands of people far less experienced than the typical Arducopter demographic.

 

[Ryan35]

I think it just will use the ground instead of GPS if the GPS is bad or you can f

Thanks for this, interesting stuff!

not a problem I am excited this is an amazing drone first time user myself hoping to get better but just another great tool for a already inspired filmmaker in myself. Michael Bay used the Solo on his latest film

 

[Solo58216]

ArduPilot > Copter > common-Optical Flow Sensors (landingpage)
Optical Flow Sensors (landingpage)



Copter and Plane support Optical Flow Sensors(camera modules that use ground texture and visible features to determine aircraft ground velocity).

Copter:
Copter supports the mouse based optical flow sensor in a special OF_Loiter mode.
Select the links below for information on the available sensors.

• ADNS3080 Mouse Sensor
• PX4-FLOW

Looks to me like it just gives ground speed

 

[nexxypoo]

To clarify for some, my (very basic) understanding of Optical Flow is, as the name suggests, about the passing of light as a sensor moves across the ground. it does not measure the distance to the ground, it does not use sonar or lidar, it uses a visual spectrum camera sensor to compare frames and determine direction of "flow", conversely giving it a general idea of the movement of the solo.
I think Sonar devices bounce sound and are generally used for distance and lo-fi object sensing.
And I'm pretty sure Lidar fires billions of laser points out and reads the reflectance vales for returning beams, determining distance, shape, colour and with the right processing, object and surface differentiation at very high accuracies (mm or better). Lidar devices are generally VERY heavy and use large amounts of energy. Getting one working on a solo would be a challenge. It seems to me to be super overkill for pathfinding, Sonar and OpFlow should be fine for it, at much lower weight and power cost.
I say all this with the caveat that it has been a few years since i have looked into these technologies and I don't know anything about 3DRs R&D in these areas, I just thought I could help clear up how the different technologies work for those who wish to know.
I can't wait for Optic Flow, I have it on a Trex450 and it is rock-solid when setup correctly.