Pacific Coast with a Solo and a Motorcycle

Brettt · Jul 28, 2016

Finally made this happen:

And just for fun, playing with 3D tracking:

LAK-USA · Jul 28, 2016

Brettt said:
Finally made this happen:

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And just for fun, playing with 3D tracking:

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Nice work Brettt, how long did it take to compile this?

Brettt · Jul 28, 2016

LAK-USA said:
Nice work Brettt, how long did it take to compile this?

Thanks! Trip and filming were over a long weekend. Then many many hours of editing...

PdxSteve · Jul 28, 2016

Very very nice! What were the top speeds it was following at?

Pushjerk · Jul 28, 2016

Dam. Amazing perspective of some killer scenery. Love the following shots.

I spent a couple years in Monterey, I'm a little partial to the area.

LAK-USA · Jul 28, 2016

Good question Steve, I was wondering the same thing.

Brettt · Jul 28, 2016

I got it to 40 mph reliably, after tweaking wp_nav_speed in Tower. The caveat is, if you have a headwind the Solo will start to drop altitude when it exceeds its max horizontal speed.

Oh, I did speed up some of the footage but that's probably obvious.

Rex Barlow · Jul 29, 2016

good job!!!! I like it.

TheBlueDog · Jul 30, 2016

Very nice! I'd be interested in learning more about how you set up the shots. Did you send the drone up, then just hop on the bike and ride?

Brettt · Jul 30, 2016

TheBlueDog said:
Very nice! I'd be interested in learning more about how you set up the shots. Did you send the drone up, then just hop on the bike and ride?

Pretty much. Had a quick routine, stop, set up the drone, send it to a safe point, set a Follow mode and go. (have to change wp_nav_speed in Tower every time too, a little annoying) Then when the battery got low or the terrain changed, pull over, land and pack up. Travelled with 4 batteries total.

wsalopek · Aug 1, 2016

Brettt said:
I got it to 40 mph reliably, after tweaking wp_nav_speed in Tower. The caveat is, if you have a headwind the Solo will start to drop altitude when it exceeds its max horizontal speed.

Brett,

Great video.

One thing though...I have a Pixhawk on a hexacopter and have some experience setting the wp_nav_speed...from what I have found (and verified (with a grain of salt of course) from 3DR), is that no matter how high you set wp_nav_speed, the Pixhawk will not trade altitude for speed...meaning a person could put 1000 mph in wp_nav_speed, and the Pixhawk will react by flying as fast as it can, WHILE MAINTAINING ALTITUDE.

Of course these flight controllers are sometimes mysterious, so I could be wrong.

User Name · Aug 4, 2016

Brettt said:
Finally made this happen:

Cool video, looks like an awesome place to ride. The color is probably a bit to tweaked for my tastes, but otherwise really cool!

wsalopek said:
...meaning a person could put 1000 mph in wp_nav_speed, and the Pixhawk will react by flying as fast as it can, WHILE MAINTAINING ALTITUDE.

That's been my experience doing auto missions with other APM/PX4 flight controller based quads, but there's been at least a few cases where Solo fails to maintain altitude at higher speeds or into headwinds. Not sure why this would be, but it's worth keeping in mind just to be safe.

Brettt · Aug 6, 2016

User Name said:
Cool video, looks like an awesome place to ride. The color is probably a bit to tweaked for my tastes, but otherwise really cool!

That's been my experience doing auto missions with other APM/PX4 flight controller based quads, but there's been at least a few cases where Solo fails to maintain altitude at higher speeds or into headwinds. Not sure why this would be, but it's worth keeping in mind just to be safe.

Yeah, I'm no good at color correction so I used a preset that probably overdid it.

With the Solo, I tested it pretty thoroughly and if you push it past a comfortable speed (say, 30 mph with a 10 mph headwind) it would start to drop. Though there is a 3DR services update to try out...