Autel EVO II drones offer powerful autonomous flight capabilities, enabling users to capture stunning aerial imagery with precision. Key to this functionality is the Autel Mission Planner, accessible through the Autel Explorer App. This comprehensive guide will walk you through setting up both rectangular and polygon missions, empowering you to leverage the full potential of your Autel drone for mapping, surveying, and more. Autel EVO II drones, when paired with the Autel Explorer app, unlock the power of autonomous flight planning through features like rectangular and polygonal mission mapping.
Planning Rectangular Missions with Autel Explorer
To initiate a rectangular mission, open the Autel Explorer App and navigate to the “Mission” section. Here, you’ll find options for waypoints, rectangles, and polygons, along with a history of your saved missions.
Select “Rectangle Task Options.” The default location will be your phone’s current GPS coordinates, but you can manually adjust the map, search for specific locations, or add them manually.
Create a new project to define your flight path. The resulting roadmap will display a blue line representing the drone’s route, starting at point “S” and ending at point “E.” You can zoom in and out to adjust the rectangular flight path’s shape and dimensions. Dragging the white points allows you to redefine the task area, while the curved arrow symbol enables rotation of the mission area. Reposition the entire roadmap on the screen by pressing and holding its center point.
Clicking the line icon at the bottom expands advanced route settings, including:
- Height: Set the desired flight altitude.
- GSD (Ground Sampling Distance): Control the resolution of your captured images.
- Speed: Determine the drone’s flight speed.
- Front Overlap and Side Overlap: Adjust image overlap for photogrammetry purposes.
- Gimbal Spacing: Control the frequency of image capture.
- Return Setting: Define the drone’s return-to-home behavior.
- Course Angle: Set the flight path’s orientation.
- Double Grid: Enable a double grid flight pattern for increased coverage.
Each parameter can be adjusted using the slider on the right. The top right corner displays estimated duration, range, and the number of images to be captured. After configuring these settings, name and save your mission to access it later in your mission history.
Polygon Missions: Defining Complex Flight Paths
Polygon missions offer greater flexibility for complex flight paths. Access “Polygon Missions” within the “Missions” section of the Autel Explorer App and create a new project. The default starting shape is a square, but you can easily modify it.
Similar to rectangular missions, polygon missions provide extended route options for height, GSD, speed, overlap, gimbal spacing, return settings, course angle, and double grid. However, the crosshatch option is not available for polygon missions.
Plus signs (+) displayed on the polygon roadmap indicate draggable points that allow you to reshape the flight path. Utilize these points to precisely define the area you wish to cover.
Before initiating your mission, ensure your camera settings are correctly configured by clicking the camera view in the top left corner. Verify image size, exposure mode, and other relevant parameters.
Conduct a pre-flight check, ensuring all aircraft components display a green status. Once confirmed, initiate the flight by clicking the flight button. The mission will upload to the drone, and it will begin its autonomous flight.
During the mission, you can pause or cancel the flight. Pausing allows you to resume the mission later, while canceling provides options to hover or return to home.
Executing Your Mission
Once your mission is planned and the pre-flight check is complete, you’re ready to fly. The Autel EVO II will autonomously follow the defined flight path, capturing images according to your settings. During the mission, you can monitor its progress in real-time within the Autel Explorer app. Control options allow you to pause or cancel the mission if needed.
