Follow Me at high speed - SOLVED

[erikgraham]

EDIT 1:
I'll update this thread later, but problem solved. In short, I was able to get the Solo following me at 40mph on the first test. Should be able to crank it up even higher than that. If your experienced editing params, just crank up wpnav_speed. If your not familiar editing params, be careful. I'll post instructions later.

EDIT 2:
High speed following has its dangers. The Solo can angle forward so much that it loses altitude, QUICKLY. The full-jargon version of that is: a high angle-of-attack leads to loss of lift. Because the autopilot prioritizes speed over altitude, there is no "safe" way to use Follow Me at high speeds.

Ok, so if you still want to try high speed following then I suggest the following:

1. The pilot really has to watch the Solo at all times. If you see it wobble or lose altitude quickly then be ready to hit Pause or Fly to stop the Solo and let it level itself. The fact that you need to be so attentive calls into question whether Folow Me is useable for action sports like motor cross, skiing, snow boarding, mountain biking, snow mobiling, etc.
2. Keep the Solo as directly behind you as possible. The Solo is the most stable flying directly forward. If it's trying to follow you from the side, it will turn to keep the camera aimed at you, and therefore need to fly sideways, or worse yet, partially sideways. Even when you use the new free-look mode to keep the nose pointed forward, the end result is still more herky-jerky. When the Solo is directly behind you, it can "lean in" straight ahead and keep up much more easily. So it's faster, but also its smoother. Small changes in heading don't cause as much herky-jerkiness as you get when the Solo is tracking you from off to the side.
3. Don't get crazy with the turns. Keep your course fairly straight. A few turns and curves is fine, but avoid zig zagging. You don't want to be whiplashing your Solo around behind you at the end of its virtual leash.

Original Post:
So today I decided to do some testing of the Follow Me smart shot in the Solo app (in other words, NOT using Tower).

What I found was that the Solo can really only keep up if you limit your speed to about 15 mph. You can get a decent follow at 20 mph, but eventually you will out pace the Solo and lose RC connection (trigger an RTL).

I tried upping performance in the Solo app to full on rabbit, but it didn't seem to make any difference. This is a big issue for the kind of shots I want to get. 15 mph is just too slow. With an Iris+ using Tower, I can tweak a few params and get much faster speeds. The same is undoubtedly true of the Solo. But I'm curious if anyone, using the Solo app, has managed to get higher speeds than 15 mph. The following algorithm in the Solo app seems a bit smoother to me (fewer jerks when heading changes quickly), so I'd like to get it working.

Any experiences, thoughts or ideas are welcome.

 

[pyrate]

follow me has been the most disappointing smart shot for me
had to buy a new tablet just to get it to see the GPS on my device
and it even then it is too slow for car chases
hopefully the new features coming will help

 

[erikgraham]

follow me has been the most disappointing smart shot for me
had to buy a new tablet just to get it to see the GPS on my device
and it even then it is too slow for car chases
hopefully the new features coming will help

Yeah. I'm 1000% in agreement.

First of all, it seems slow. Granted I'm comparing it to an Iris+ modified with different motors and props, and with params tweaked for a little extra speed.

Second of all, the fact that we have to keep the controller and the phone together is crushing my soul. Gone are the days of sending someone down the hill with a phone while we keeping the controller. Now everything has to be packaged up together. Its one thing to strap a phone with a mavlink antenna between someones shoulder blades, but asking them to wear an entire rig which includes the controller is a deal killer. I've resigned myself to dusting off the old Iris to get these shots, but figured I could at least use the Solo for following vehicles... but no... its too slow.

I will say this though. It might be my imagination, but I do think that Follow Me using the Solo app is smoother than Following using Tower. Following with Tower can be rather jerky when there are sharp heading changes. Follow Me with the Solo app seems to make use of the companion computer to smooth things out.

 

[pyrate]

with the right device it is much smoother.
I had a Note 4 Phone, and an LG G4 phone, both hero devices and follow me was pure crap
got a Nexus 9 and it is much better.
I sure hope when they add free look to follow me, some other enhancements follow along, no pun intended

 

[erikgraham]

with the right device it is much smoother.
I had a Note 4 Phone, and an LG G4 phone, both hero devices and follow me was pure crap
got a Nexus 9 and it is much better.
I sure hope when they add free look to follow me, some other enhancements follow along, no pun intended

That's interesting. Could be the device it's following, not the algorithm used to follow. It doesn't make sense that the two different follow methods (Solo app vs Tower app) would use two different methods. It does make sense that two different devices being followed might provide a different quality level of location data.

Anyway, to steer this back to the original question...
Has anyone found a way to increase top speed during follow me from the Solo app. For example, does jacking up wpnav_speed or loit speed help?

I may have to wait until I get home to dust off my Iris and look at my notes to figure out what we did to make it so much faster.

 

[Maddog]

Don't know how to increase the speed but was wondering how far the controller can be separated from the phone/tablet?

I thought this was supposed to allow somebody else to use the controller to adjust the position of solo or act as a safety pilot while following "the action".

 

[PdxSteve]

was wondering how far the controller can be separated from the phone/tablet?

It entirely depends on the device being followed. It's relying on the devices (relatively) weak wifi signal to send the data back to the controller. Cell phone/Tablet wifi doesn't have much of a range at all. Maybe 50 feet-ish. Is your phones wifi connected to your home internet? Try walking outside and see how far away you can get before losing signal. I'm guessing that's where the real problem lies. We're adding beefier/more robust wifi cards, extra amps, etc., to the Solo/Controller to get a better link between those two...there isn't a way to do that with our phones/tablets, unless there is some sort of external wifi card with a really good antenna that can plug into the USB/Lightning connector.

 

[erikgraham]

Don't know how to increase the speed but was wondering how far the controller can be separated from the phone/tablet?

I thought this was supposed to allow somebody else to use the controller to adjust the position of solo or act as a safety pilot while following "the action".

They say 500 feet (150 meters). My experience is more like 160 feet (50 meters).

As for the follow speed, I'm hoping someone has already experimented, but it looks like I'll have to do it on my own. Too bad it's raining today. Follow me is really a form of guided mode. I'm 99% sure speed in guided mode is governed by the wpnav_speed param. Possibly by the loit_speed param.

 

[Maddog]

It entirely depends on the device being followed. It's relying on the devices (relatively) weak wifi signal to send the data back to the controller. Cell phone/Tablet wifi doesn't have much of a range at all. Maybe 50 feet-ish. Is your phones wifi connected to your home internet? Try walking outside and see how far away you can get before losing signal. I'm guessing that's where the real problem lies. We're adding beefier/more robust wifi cards, extra amps, etc., to the Solo/Controller to get a better link between those two...there isn't a way to do that with our phones/tablets, unless there is some sort of external wifi card with a really good antenna that can plug into the USB/Lightning connector.

That makes sense- hadn't thought of that. Normally the device is attached to the controller when flying. Have never tried separating the two.

 

[Jubalr]

They say 500 feet (150 meters). My experience is more like 160 feet (50 meters).

As for the follow speed, I'm hoping someone has already experimented, but it looks like I'll have to do it on my own. Too bad it's raining today. Follow me is really a form of guided mode. I'm 99% sure speed in guided mode is governed by the wpnav_speed param. Possibly by the loit_speed param.

Hey Erik, try udjusting the WPNAV_SPEED parameter in Tower. I believe it will also be used in the Solo app once changed. When you go in to Tower Parameters section, first Save your existing values to a file. The go to the WP_Nav section and try increasing that value. That sets the speed in any Guided mode and RTL.

 

[erikgraham]

Hey Erik, try udjusting the WPNAV_SPEED parameter in Tower. I believe it will also be used in the Solo app once changed. When you go in to Tower Parameters section, first Save your existing values to a file. The go to the WP_Nav section and try increasing that value. That sets the speed in any Guided mode and RTL.

Yup. After I posted this I went over and checked the arduCopter docs. Guided mode is indeed governed by WPNAV_SPEED, not wpnav_loit_speed. (Follow me is a form of guided mode). I haven't gotten a chance to test it yet (raining) but the docs are clear - and it jogged my memory on this topic from last winter.

And yes, the params do carry over when you use the Solo app, unless of course you makes settings changes within the Solo app that effect the param that was set in MP/Tower. I would not recommend doing that by the way. If you want to make settings changes in the Solo app, it's probably safest to reset to default values in Tower or MP first.

For anyone who comes across this post later, note that changing the WPNAV_SPEED param will also effect the Solo's default speed during planned missions. So you may want to reset the param before running any missions - although you could leave wpnav_nav speed cranked up for higher speed following, but when you plan a mission always do set speed command early.

Also, for anyone who comes across this post later, here's a little history on the Follow Me "smart" shot. Follow me is actually not that smart. It's a direct descendent of guided mode, where you click a spot on the map (in Mission Planner) and the plane or copter will fly there, then loiter. It was a pretty small leap from that to following, which simply gets the location data from a connected mobile device, rather than from user clicks on a map in Mission Planner. It's just rudimentary "go here" commands that interupt whatever process is running, including previous guided mode commands. Guided mode has to be designed that way. If you click a spot on the map that will take your plane or copter through a mountain, you need to be able to quickly click a new safe destination and have that immediately interupt and override whatever previous guided mode was executing.

Unfortunately this can cause Following to be a little herky jerky. That's because it's the "dumbest" of the "smart shots." Follow me is basically just your phone repeatedly yelling at your drone, "Go here! No don't go there, now go here!" over and over. Ok, there's a bit more to it than that, but since guided mode commands interupt any previous command, including a previous guided mode command, if you are changing your heading a lot (like a skier carving turns or a mountain biker winding down a mountainside, or even a car on a windy road), then because of follow me's guided mode DNA, it will immediately execute the heading change with no softening.

Having said that, it does seem that they may have added some softening to follow me in the latest version of the Solo app. I'm not sure because I haven't been able to really test it, but I think I'm seeing softer heading changes using follow me in the Solo app versus following in Tower.

I'll report back and probably post some videos if I'm able to get higher speed following working.

 

[pyrate]

interesting
one of the reasons I just do not use tower is even on turtle in the solo app the dang thing flies missions so fast that the gimbal vibrates to heck
so I just gave up using tower

 

[erikgraham]

interesting
one of the reasons I just do not use tower is even on turtle in the solo app the dang thing flies missions so fast that the gimbal vibrates to heck
so I just gave up using tower

If you want to slow down the speed in missions, you have two options:

1. you can set speed changes at waypoints.
2. You can lower the value in the WPNAV_SPEED parameter.

Meantime, I've confirmed that WPNAV_SPEED will indeed change the max speed the Solo will do in follow me. I still have some testing to do. There is another param that may help smooth things out. Off the top of my head I think it's WPNAV_ACCEL, but don't quote me on that.

I've also confirmed that there is NO DIFFERENCE in how following works regardless of whether it's initiated in Tower or the Solo app. Any perception I had that following was smoother using the Solo app was just my imagination. They both use the same guided code.

 

[erikgraham]

Success! 40mph follow me!

I just got the Solo up to 40 mph while following my car. Well, technically the driver was going 40mph, but the Solo seemed to be keeping up fine. Gotta help my kid with some homework, but I'll post back later.

 

[RichWest]

I've also confirmed that there is NO DIFFERENCE in how following works regardless of whether it's initiated in Tower or the Solo app. Any perception I had that following was smoother using the Solo app was just my imagination. They both use the same guided code.

Just talking out loud, but could the device's GPS refresh rate be an influence in how smooth Solo tracks? We're talking about a power component within the device, I'd assume there is an acceptable rate for mapping and directions that is coded, and then still conserve battery power.

Congrates on the 40MPH follow me, that's awesome. Now can you do 50 MPH.....

 

[erikgraham]

Congrates on the 40MPH follow me, that's awesome. Now can you do 50 MPH.....

I'm definitely going to try!

 

[J R]

interesting
one of the reasons I just do not use tower is even on turtle in the solo app the dang thing flies missions so fast that the gimbal vibrates to heck
so I just gave up using tower

Pyrate,

Just make a "change speed" waypoint. I set on on my 2nd waypoint in every Tower flight. It works great.

Jerry

 

[pyrate]

yeah I had that change speed waypoint set, as both the first, then the second waypoint when the first did not work,
they appeared to have no effect on the speed of the mission.

 

[J R]

yeah I had that change speed waypoint set, as both the first, then the second waypoint when the first did not work, they appeared to have no effect on the speed of the mission.

Hmmm, that's odd, mine works great. It didn't work right as the 1st but as soon as I put it as the 2nd, worked like a champ. I did a few missions where I altered the speed over many waypoints and it worked fine. When using Tower I always open the services app first and then launch Solo and Tower from there. Not sure if that makes any difference.

Jerry

 

[pyrate]

what speed are you slowing to?