That would have been a real breakthrough and worth the higher price tag. It's already available I think it's called lidar basically day rotating camera under the quad that captures 360 imaging in real time.
Real obstacle avoidance should have been rotating 360
- Thread starter 30secs
- Start date
no...
first of all, that would cost SO much more. the P3P cost $1259 at launch, so the P4 costs $141 extra. if it had a rotating camera, it would need turn into the inspire one which would not only destroy DJI's sales for the inspire one (which is obviously a bad marketing idea) it would also cost about $2000 for us because that isn't something that would cost the same amount.
first of all, that would cost SO much more. the P3P cost $1259 at launch, so the P4 costs $141 extra. if it had a rotating camera, it would need turn into the inspire one which would not only destroy DJI's sales for the inspire one (which is obviously a bad marketing idea) it would also cost about $2000 for us because that isn't something that would cost the same amount.
No, it would eat up way too much battery to have 360 avoidance. With the battery specs, without object avoidance would net us something like 35 min fly time. There's a real energy cost in the technology, running two extra cameras and running calculations of that level, that quickly takes a ton of energy that is taken directly from fly time. It was wise to not go full 360 until the battery tech gets there.
Also, this is a photography platform, not a VR platform. They'd be cornering themselves into a niche market if they did a 360 degree camera. And frankly I'd have no use for such a thing.
Also, this is a photography platform, not a VR platform. They'd be cornering themselves into a niche market if they did a 360 degree camera. And frankly I'd have no use for such a thing.
Meta4
Premium Pilot
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2014
- Messages
- 15,354
- Reaction score
- 9,296
Lidar isn't a rotating camera and it's completely separate from any photographic device .. It's a rotating laser scanner.
I find the forward facing object avoidance to be limiting as my P3 spends a lot of its time yawing in an orbit or perhaps backwards in a pull away. In terms of battery and CPU it must be a huge drain, but perhaps in a future Phantom they'll position the avoidance sensor/cameras on each corner at something like a 45 degree angle with a wide overlapping field of view and by doing so they can turn on 2, possibly 3 depending on the direction of travel and minimise power and CPU usage. Any sensor not seeing the direction of travel can be powered down.
The key thing is DJI need people to buy their products to avoid to innovate so P4 owners this year will be funding the P5 development ready for release next year.
The key thing is DJI need people to buy their products to avoid to innovate so P4 owners this year will be funding the P5 development ready for release next year.
This raises an interesting question: since the P4 has object avoidance, and a rotating camera can be somewhat replaced by yawing the quad, will they have to put object avoidance on the Inspire too?
Only costs around $90,000 for lidar unit. Maybe I should snag one of the Google car next time it drives past. Solid state lidar was just invented this year. Lidar won't offer you anything over regular cameras that's super impressive right now. Tesla's self driving car that's on the road today doesn't have lidar. Phantom will keep getting more camera around its sides and top.
This. No one is grasping the tech and power required to operate 5 cameras, let alone 6 axis cameras. As a developer the P4 offerings are astounding!
Similar threads
