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Using DJI Drones With DroneTM

1. Initialise The Drone

  • As soon as you remove the drone from the packaging, mark the drone, controller, and all batteries with a permanent marker to identify them as a set.
  • Ensure the foam insert it removed from behind the gimbal (camera), so that it can move freely.
  • Power on your drone, connect to Wifi, and log into your DJI account. Without this step, the image timestamps will be incorrect and not correctly synced with the current time and timezone.
  • If you are using an RC2 or controller model with an in-built screen, next insert your SD card into the controller, then go to Profile --> Settings --> Storage. Click 'SD Card' to swap to using the SD card to load waypoint missions from.
  • Next, switch to image mode (instead of video mode), then go to the image settings, and select 4:3 as the aspect ratio. (we don't want 16:9 as it's cropped / mainly for video).
  • To be able to load flightplans from DroneTM onto your controller / phone, first you must fly at least one 'waypoint mission' via DJI Fly.
  • Connect to your drone. While it's hovering, select 'Waypoint' mode. Create a minimum of two waypoints by clicking the C1 button.
  • Exit and land the drone - this part is done.

2. Waypoints or Waylines?

  • There are two modes of creating flightplans in DroneTM.
  • The primary method is 'waypoints', where each point to take a photo is present, including the angle of the camera, altitude of the drone, etc.
  • However, for tasks covering a large area, we have a large number of points generated. The RC2 controller (and low RC-N2 + low-spec devices) struggle to load all of the points, and may lag or fail to run the flightplan. This is mostly a problem when the number of waypoints exceeds ~120.
  • As a solution to this, we have 'waylines' mode, which essentially removes all points between which the altitude does not vary significantly (>5m).
  • For the majority of flyable tasks, you should now have an acceptable number of points to load in a single flight.

3. Loading A Flightplan

See tutorial videos on the DroneTM platform!

Important

Ensure the following for a successful flight:

1. Before takeoff, the image settings are 4:3 and not 16:9.

2. Also ensure you have set the max altitude the drone can fly in the settings to the maximum. This is required for terrain following to work, as it's the max altitude above sea level, not the max altitude above ground (so the drone can fly high enough).

3. Ensure the max altitude setting on the drone is all the way to 500m (the maximum) - they allows for terrain following to work correctly.

4. If using wayline mode, ensure you set the photo capture interval on the drone to 2 seconds. Hold the icon above the photo capture button, select the timer icon, scroll to 2 seconds, then click the photo capture button to start. Ensure this is done as soon as the drone reaches the 2nd waypoint on the mission (i.e. once it reaches the start of the photo capture grid, after the initial takeoff waypoint). Also ensure the photo capture is turned off when the final waypoint is captured for the mission.

5. Do not interfere with the device mid-flight. Wait for the mission to finish before carrying out other operations on the controller.

Helpful Tips

Q: My drone is asking me to log in

  • DJI is quite restrictive and requires all drones to be logged in to fly.
  • Sometimes a firmware update may require you to login again.
  • Ensure you are connected to Wifi: pull down the top bar on the screen --> toggle Wifi --> connect to your network.
  • Enter your DJI login credentials (created on the DJI website).

Q: I can't connect the mobile app on my phone to the controller

  • Make sure you enable 'Transfer mode' once the cables are plugged in. By default it will often start in 'Charging mode', but you need to pull down the notifications bar and click the popup there to toggle connection mode.
  • USB C cables can be difficult sometimes. Try swapping the direction of the cable. Try another cable too. Ideally you should use the USB C cable that was packaged with the drone.
  • Try a different phone if possible too, to help confirm where the issue may be.

Q: The dates on my final imagery files are wrong

  • If the drone has not connected to Wifi for a while, the clock inside the drone may be out of date. Connect to Wifi to fix this problem.