Cable Cam and the Competition..

[Ian [P13]]

I suspect the P4 and likely the Yuneec have enough GPU power for the cablecam feature.

What makes the Solo good is the software is easy to write for, i.e. being on a Linux platform and having Python means a developer can have an idea and implement it very quickly.

The splines on Solo are based on the maths developed by one of the Pixar animators which probably goes some way to explaining why they work well with a camera.

From a hardware viewpoint the Solo is helped by having multiple sensors, sensors in multicopters are relatively cheap and not as accurate as military grade hardware, to get accuracy one approach is to have more than one sensor and then process all of the inputs into one solution, which is what the EKF code does. So whilst I'll often myself talk about the Solo hardware having redundancy, really the reason there are multiple sensors is about accuracy.

Finally the gimbal is Mavlink which provides a two way communication from the gimbal giving precise control, the gimbal itself also has its own EKF using sensor data which even includes taking data from components within the Solo such as the GPS.

 

[Greg Parker]

I suspect the P4 and likely the Yuneec have enough GPU power for the cablecam feature.

With Autopilot for DJI the program is executed from the GS not the craft they aren't even uploaded to the craft. So the computations are not done by DJI, in many cases it is done by an IPAD.


From a hardware viewpoint the Solo is helped by having multiple sensors, sensors in multicopters are relatively cheap and not as accurate as military grade hardware, to get accuracy one approach is to have more than one sensor and then process all of the inputs into one solution, which is what the EKF code does. So whilst I'll often myself talk about the Solo hardware having redundancy, really the reason there are multiple sensors is about accuracy.

Finally the gimbal is Mavlink which provides a two way communication from the gimbal giving precise control, the gimbal itself also has its own EKF using sensor data which even includes taking data from components within the Solo such as the GPS.

Considering the distance most gimbal shots are made at and the large scenes involved any added precision inferred is probably of little real impact in the finished video project.

 

[Ian [P13]]

The whole point of cablecam is it's motion control in the sky and the idea is that you can repeat the same shot again and again, either to repeat a timelapse weeks apart or to film a music video say with band members in specific places, or an action scene with actors hitting marks. Any subtle difference in accuracy is going to result in the shot being off with each run.

The Solo considering GPS is only accurate to meters not centimeters does a good job at repeating a shot, so the fact the Solo has plenty of sensors must play its part.

Incidentally RTK is coming to the Pixhawk 2, so in theory could make it to the Solo in which case centimeter accuracy would be possible.

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[Adimuzio513]

Thanks for all the info fellas, the amount I learn every time I log on here is as incredible as the quad itself. Some of its over my head and above my pay grade, but great knowledge to have none the less. Great thread here thanks again.

 

[STMPNGRND]

Incidentally RTK is coming to the Pixhawk 2, so in theory could make it to the Solo in which case centimeter accuracy would be possible.

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Yes it is but apparently there is an issue with Pixhawk performing float/int calculations required for cm resolution. So while you can geo tag images via pixhawk with cm accuracy unfortunately navigation will still be limited to meter resolution. It looks like progress is being made but not complete yet Implement mission_item_int by meee1 · Pull Request #3688 · ArduPilot/ardupilot · GitHub