Operating the DJI M100 quadcopter
Before you fly
- Make sure all propellers are in the right orientation and properly locked.
- Make sure the battery has been charged.
- Clear the surrounding area of non-essential personnel.
- If you are flying in the lab make sure the is good texture everywhere in the flight area.
- If flying aggressive maneuvers do so in (A)ttitude mode. Since you might lose optical flow at some places around the lab, stay safe and stay in attitude control to avoid any surprises.
- Make sure the status light is yellow or green and that you are not in an area of magnetic disturbance.
- Ensure any loose cables or antenna are secured.
- Ensure no object is obstructing onboard cameras including the Guidance module.
Flying Manually
Much like other vehicles in the lab, you arm using the usual two sticks down and to the center motion. You can disarm using the same motion but since its a pretty powerful quad, sometimes it can move on the ground when you do so. The alternate way is to throttle down to 0 and wait 2-3 seconds until it auto disarms.
API usage
READ ALL OF THIS BEFORE PROCEEDING
It is beneficial to read through the entire DJI documentation to fully understand their API. There are a few catches such as their NED reference frame with a flipped Z, so read the docs. There are two APIs:
- Onboard SDK : The SDK running on a vehicle to control it.
- Guidance SDK : The SDK running on a vehicle to get data from the DJI Guidance.
- Mobile SDK : The SDK running on a mobile phone that interacts with the vehicle through the remote controller.
In addition to the above there are ROS variants available. Note that the Guidance ROS SDK isn't very well written. We should prefer using the internal one and modifying it to suit our needs.