Snowboarding with Skydio and it doesn’t follow down the slope

[Skydiosnowboarder]

I’ve been freeriding with Skydio 2 and use the beacon accessory. My problem is that while I get the drone to follow me (I use fixed track), it doesn’t follow me down the slope. I.e. it tracks and flies with me but keeps the same altitude, meaning that the distance grows very quickly if I’m going down a steep slope. I will initially put it say 5 yards behind and 5 yards above, but after a minute of going down it will be 5 yards behind and 50 yards above which isn’t great.

How can I get the drone to drop altitude with me so that the tracking distance remains fixed? Anything that I’m doing wrong?

 

[BlueHeeler]

I would try the Motion Track option if you have not done so, just make sure you are the "Subject". Experimentation helps one to be better acquainted with his/her Drone.

 

[Skydiosnowboarder]

I’m pretty confident I was the subject as the drone was following me (and the phone screen showed me as the subject as well), it just didn’t drop in altitude even though I was descending.

I can try motion track just in case it does this better, I’m not sure why it would do so but agree that it doesn’t hurt to try.

The other experiment I’m thinking of is to snowboard with the beacon in my hand, so I can continuously press the minus (-) button to decrease the distance as I go downhill. Not an ideal solution though especially if the terrain is challenging to ride.

Has anyone solved this issue successfully?

 

[kenmavic2zoom]

this should help:

 

[Skydiosnowboarder]

Thank you! Can you explain though why you would go with motion track instead of fixed track to get the drone to drop altitude as I ride downhill?

The official Skydio resources recommend fixed track for snowboarding and skiing (and other sports where one changes direction frequently) so would be super helpful to understand why motion track should work better here.

How to fly Skydio 2 in the snow

Here are 10 tips on how to fly Skydio 2 in the snow

www.skydio.com

 

[Ridefreak]

That's strange because there's quite a few SD videos out there of it following someone down a mtn. I wonder if it has anything to do with visual tracking and a solid white background. If the drone is close in it's not using the beacon's gps signal to establish it's location, it's relying on the camera to track you. Possibly there's a depth perception issue on snow with the camera and certain lighting conditions? Once it's distanced beyond the second tick it should switch to GPS tracking and then it's comparing the beacon's gps location to the drone's and shouldn't have the same problem if that's what it is. I've seen visual tracking suffer in certain lighting conditions.

 

[VEGASROBBI]

Dynamic altitude, as we called it, is a complex subject. I don't know the answer with the S2 but my S2 does follow down trails.

As far as I know the groundbreaking 3DR was the 1st to have dynamic altitude. The Solo used a barometer on Solo and the barometer from a device like an iPad. It actually worked well with altitude corrections smooth but a little laggy.

DJI briefly used baro based dynamic altitude in the P3 with GPS follow but it did not work well. DJI switched to Active Track which was optical follow and added VPS, a visual positioning system which had downward facing cameras to try and maintain AGL during tracking. DJI pushed VPS but I found it does not work well. It only worked at low speed and low altitude. It was found VPS worked best with high contrast grainy terrain. Homogenous landscapes like water and snow caused a lot of crashes with Phantoms diving into the water or ground.

I found baro based dynamic altitude the best. The Yuneec Typhoon H was awesome, fast and the Wizard Wand had a baro built in, it was similar to the S2 beacon; I searched and could not find any information on baro's installed in the S2 making me think it is downward facing camera based.

The Halo drone had great dynamic altitude. The drone, watch, tracking puck and controller all had baro's. Prior to flight you had calibrate the altitude difference between the drone and device, it was very smooth and accurate; I could hold AGL + or - 4 feet at speed.

Anyway sorry this is not an answer but next time I go out I will monitor my S2's dynamic altitude going downhill, I know it can be a little jumpy - because it's depending on visual only?

But as mentioned Skydio should have a handle on this maybe submit a ticket.

 

[Skydiosnowboarder]

Thank you! This could be related to the root cause. I tried again over the weekend and as with the last time the drone didn’t drop altitude with me when tracking and then ultimately lost tracking as the vertical distance grew (GPS tracking did not kick in).

However, when I stopped mid-slope I had the added issue that I could not get the drone down even with manually using my phone to press down on the height controls. It just refused to budge. Pressing return to phone / beacon got it on top of me but at a height of 200-300 yards. The only way I was able to retrieve it was to press land and this then got it to ignore obstacle avoidance and to come down (which took quite a while from this height).

So maybe the problem is indeed with the altitude sensing?