Getting DroneBlocks to work on Phantom 4

[Phillip Sherwood]

My new P4 just arrived and the first thing I wanted to do is to get DroneBlocks integrated, tested and operational in time for the beautiful weather for flying weekend that was forcasted, however not so quick. I wants was moving faster than the developmental and publishing side of the house. My goals upon completion of a successful integration are the following:

    1. Get the DroneBlocks to work.

    2. Provide the instruction methods for others to successfully integrate their with Phantom 4's.

    3. Publish the steps and make them available to everyone.

 I sent Dennis my first in a series of questions:

 Q: What's the magic trick to get DroneBlocks to work with Phantom 4? 

 Addl. Info - I just get "Unknown Aircraft" in the camera image box in the upper right hand corner of the app and it remains dark so something is getting through.

 Dennis Baldwin(DB): I was seeing that too until I updated my P4 firmware. 

 Q: Can you let me know if you're on the latest? ?

 Me (A):The latest. Aircraft Firmware v1.1.301 and DJI Assistant 2 v1.0.2 

 DB: Are you using the Simulator attached to the DJI Assistant 2 for P4? This is different than the standard PC Simulator used for the P3.

 Me: I can operate the simulator for DJI Assistant 2 for P4 with zero problem. It's the Droneblocks App that I can't get to work

 Addl. Info - I can also operate the simulator in the DJI GO app for Phantom 4 with zero problem..

 On a side note, I have the Inspire I Pro and everything works as advertised on that but there is something different with Phantom 4 that requires a different set of procedures still being developed and tested.

--- As of this posting today, this is where I am at so far in my troubleshooting process and still unsuccessful. If anyone out there has made the breakthrough, please let me know how you did it so we can get it out to the rest of the Droneblocks/Phantom 4 community ---

[Preston Ward]

Wanted to confirm the post. We're investigating and will have an answer for your ASAP. I've also invited you to one of the large Phantom 4 Owners groups on FB and there are lot's of experts who may know the hang up. You can find the Phantom 4 Owners group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PHANT4/

[d...@unmannedairlines.com]

Sorry for the hassle and to be honest I'm not sure what is going on. Can you tell me if you're using the DroneBlocks version directly from the App Store or the version available through TestFlight? What about your RC firmware version? Here are my versions on my iPad that works fine with DroneBlocks:

Let me know and we can take it from there!

[Phillip Sherwood]

This is my current P4 firm/software configuration.

[d...@unmannedairlines.com]

Phillip, 

I pulled up our Apple TestFlight account and don't see you on the beta. So you're likely using the current version in the App Store, which will not work with the P4. You will get an invite email from Apple soon so please be sure to install the version. Then I'm hoping we can get DroneBlocks running on your Phantom 4.

Thanks,
Dennis

[Phillip Sherwood]

That will be great. I'm looking fwd to its arrival. Any idea how much longer?

[d...@unmannedairlines.com]

Apple tells us you've already been notified. Check your spam.

[Phillip Sherwood]

Last night I finally had a successful connection between DroneBlocks and my P4 so I took my quad and iPad mini to the field across the street to test my little mission I blocked together. After pressing the button to start mission, I noticed that P4's position on the ground was jumping all over the place, to include the center of the pond. Acute panic overcame me just as P4 was lifting off the ground that the recorded Return to Home and Land point was going to be recorded as the middle of the pond. I tried to stop/abort the mission so I could reposition the P4 to a safe distance away from the pond but i could not take control back of the aircraft like i easily can with Inspire.I. I opened DJI GO, turned off DroneBlocks, flicked switches but nothing was working. P4 was on its mission. Luckily P4 completed its mission and landed back at its point of takeoff.

On the Inspire, you can change the switch position from "F" back to "P" and regain manual control. 

Question: Does anyone know how to abort a DroneBlock mission once it begins?

[d...@unmannedairlines.com]

Very glad to hear that you mission completed successfully. I know what it's like to be in panic mode and the P->F switch has always been a huge help with I1 and P3 to abort a mission. Regarding the P4 this is a great question. One thing we're going to do is introduce a "Cancel" and "Pause" button when a mission is being executed. In my opinion this will make things a lot safer when running field missions. One thing you can do is double tap and swipe DroneBlocks away to stop the mission from executing. At least in theory this is possible. I also wonder if sending DroneBlocks to the background with a single tap will achieve the same effect. We'll run some tests in the P4 simulator today and report back. Please do the same if you uncover anything else. Thanks for all the testing.

[d...@unmannedairlines.com]

I've confirmed during testing in the Phantom 4 simulator that a mission can be aborted by switching from P to S (sport) mode. If you switch quickly from P to A it will still continue run the mission. I'm testing some other scenarios and will report back with final results.

[Phillip Sherwood]

Did you verify if when switching back to P mode from S if the mission resumes or does this action cancel the mission as if a CTRL-Break was entered during mission execution? I wasn't able to test last night.

In my panic, I went so far as to not only put DroneBlocks in the background but I closed it all together and tried resuming flight using DJI GO app but the P4 seemed to only partially respond to my command inputs but seemed intent on completing the execution of the DroneBlocks mission it was on. When switching to DJI GO, the app acquired the satellites until thr green banner appeared, the camera came on line and was able to be controlled in the tilt mode. Hope this additional info proves helpful.

[dennis...@gmail.com]

Switching to S mode completely cancels the mission. We need a "Pause" capability and will be working on that soon. Yeah so when we upload a mission to the aircraft it's objective is to carry about that mission. Unfortunately sending DroneBlocks to the background doesn't do that. As of right now the only way to cancel a mission is to go from P -> S. We'll come up with some documentation and get to work on an in-app pause/cancel capability.

[d...@unmannedairlines.com]

Just as a follow up to this topic I wanted to share a video that explains how the flight mode switch works in more detail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoW2jbFpBEs