DROHUB - Real time field operations from your Phone, PC or TV.

[drohub]

Hello all,

For about a year now, I have been working on a platform called DROHUB to allow live stream of video from the drone to the internet browser. The time has come to show it to the world as a Beta demo.

DROHUB is a collaborative tool that allows a pilot to use DROHUB's Android app connected to the ANAFI and Internet so it can share the live video with very low latency. Besides sharing, there is also multi-directional audio communication between the pilot and the viewers on the DROHUB platform website.
After a pilot disconnects the app, the live video is made available in the DROHUB Gallery within seconds, including not only the video but also the audio of the multiple participants.

Scenarios which I aim at enabling are drone technical inspections(no support for Thermal at the moment) and security overviews, where the collaboration between assets on the field and people in the control center improve operations efficiency and effectiveness. For that, the DROHUB platform allows for actions to be triggered in any web browser, including mobile ones (excluding Safari) to be executed on the drone remotely. Currently the available actions are picture triggering, and on-board video start/stop, but when safe usability is guaranteed, take-off; land; and map movements will be shown as available in the DROHUB website.

DROHUB also has a permissions system so that different types of users can only have access to what they need. An example is that a guest (the default role for an invitation to a Flight Area) can only see live video and play videos. It cannot do remote flight actions, nor modify/delete assets, nor fly.

DROHUB is currently available as Software as a Service, but if there is commercial interest, there is the possibility of hosting the platform on-premises.

As written, DROHUB is currently in beta mode so I am not charging the for the usage for it's duration. In exchange I am open to feedback on the technical usability as well as defects the various components may have. Please also be aware that the system may not be reliable all the time, nor do I guarantee the integrity of the data recordings. The website has a method for deleting, tagging and downloading the videos en-mass so make use of it. I am also collecting flight data and recording it. The data is not sold nor transferred to any 3rd party, and the terms will be updated if that would happen.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any damage or issue while using the platform. I can only tell you that for a full year of testing I never had any situation where i lost control of the drone. In the unlikely even of the application crashing while flying keep in mind that the SkyController has full authority and is usable even when the app is crashed. Keep calm and fly safe.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Interesting.
Keep in mind if you ever do start charging we cannot allow your advertisement of the product unless you become a preferred vendor.
It sounds like something a lot of people would be interested in and good luck on your venture.

 

[drohub]

Hello Augustine. Thanks for the heads up. Will keep it in mind, and if there is interest I will gladly chip in.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

OK this morning I decided to play with the App. I noticed there was a update to it so I waited till it updated. At first I had trouble logging in to the account I created but after a few tries I was able to log in. During my testing after a few minutes the screen went blank so I tried a few restarts and I ran into another problem. This time the App would not allow my connection. See photo screen shot.
Also the short video gallery cannot be deleted by me. I have tried several times and it just remains in the gallery.
You might also want to get some kind of tutorial together for new users.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

OK I have figured out the deleting part. I saw that it highlighted the video so I just hit delete but you actually have to manually highlight it for it to delete. One problem solved

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I have tried deleting the App and reinstalling it and I still get the same error message in the top right hand side of the App. "DROHUB rejected our connection" but I am able to tilt the camera up and down so it does see the Anafi but no video displayed.

 

[drohub]

Hello Augustine, thank your feedback. You are right I definitely need to create a guide. It is now that I am seeing what people are having difficulties with that I can know how to direct my efforts. I never thought it would not be clear how to delete the videos, but that is probably because I programmed it . Do you think short videos would be helpful or written text?

Regarding the rejected connection I am not home now so I will need to check the logs. There is a way that the message you are seeing is shown. If you restart the application very fast the new connections are rejected as a way of preventing denial of service. Another is that you already do not have minutes in your account. Definitely something to improve. Can I suggest you try again and let the video settle and not touch the application when you start it up and see the retrieving device information message?

Thanks a lot for the feedback
Paulo Neves

 

[drohub]

Actually I re-read your post and you said you had videos in the gallery. That means at some point the video streaming worked. If you chose the free plan it may just be that your minutes expired. I will add minutes to all the subs. Even so I already learned something very important ,which in my manual tests i never saw: the application response to an expired subscription. I will improve the error message to a more specific one.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Looking at my profile I see I have 0 allowed flight time.


Flight Area Name
c7346026-6dee-4c1e-a82b-91971b8a3094
User Name
[email protected]
Allowed flight time (minutes)
0
Aditional Users To Add To Flight Area
1

 

[drohub]

Hey Augustine for the free tier it was 10 minutes. The other tiers are also free at this time so you could have chosen the "paid" tiers free of charge. I will increase the free tier for that account.

The current minute allowances are also part of what I am trying to test. If the tiers are good fits or not.
[Edit]: Already added minutes to all the existing subscriptions

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I played around with it again this morning. Seems to work pretty well. I really am not a fan of the microphone option. Tends to give a lot of feedback that is hard on the ears. I tried using the mute button but that did not seem to do anything. Mind you once I move further away form the viewing PC it got better. Seems the App wants you to use the the microphone and has to be on.

 

[drohub]

Hey Agustine great news. Regarding the mute the issue is the computer/browser does not have a mute button implemented, which is something that I will add soon enough. If you have the phone near the computer, the computer and phone will make a feedback pair, only with the computer microphone. In the windows settings, or in the browser settings you can mute the microphone and it will be gone.

Did you get to make a flight? Did you feel any more difficulties. Could you make me a summary of what you like most and what you like the least, if it is not too much to ask?

 

[Jagerbomb52]

My flight was only about 5 minutes and most of that the Anafi was just sitting waiting for me to hit take off
So when I have more time I will try and report back. The video that gets saved to the site must be saved as a very low resolution file I am guessing to save on space?
This weekend my daughter and son in law are coming to visit so I will get them to be the control center observers and I will be out flying the drone. I'll give you their feed back, LOL

 

[drohub]

The video is lower resolution so that the 4G connections can reasonably handle it, plus allowing for situational awareness. For sure there will be no art prizes. On the other hand it might be enough for the artist in the "couch" to trigger the on-board videos which will be the usual anafi quality.

Regarding the observers, it sounds like a great test. Thanks a lot

 

[Dani]

Hi there,
this looks promising! I ran into some problems but eventually managed to get a recording. I will collect some questions and get back to you.
At work I am responsible for a good part of the audiovisual department of the Arteveldehogeschool in Ghent, Belgium. My main job is to make sure that the beamers and audio in the 140 classrooms (spread over three sites) are 100% working. This can only be achieved when everything is made super simple for our teaching staff. This experience can help me translate the user perspective into feedback.

Regards
Dani

 

[drohub]

Hi Dani,
The problems people are recording with the login and the device creation are being worked on and by the end of the day or tomorrow I will have an improved app experience published. This is also base on the feedback of Agustine.

At work I am responsible for a good part of the audiovisual department of the Arteveldehogeschool in Ghent, Belgium. My main job is to make sure that the beamers and audio in the 140 classrooms (spread over three sites) are 100% working. This can only be achieved when everything is made super simple for our teaching staff. This experience can help me translate the user perspective into feedback.

I am not sure what you meant in this part of the text. Do you have drones in the classrooms?

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Yesterday I had my family out for a visit but unfortunately the weather and wind was not very good for flying or testing. This morning I performed a couple of tests using my home PC and also a tablet as the observer base stations. The PC had no issues as it is connected hard wired to my high speed internet. The tablet on the other hand was connected to the Wi-Fi and if it did not have a good signal there was plenty of locking up on the receiving video. So client end would need a good data connection if out in the field where there is no Wi-Fi.
All in all it worked well. I did a screen capture just now and was wondering about a couple of things. I guess the GPS signal is from the Anafi and not the phones or tablets GPS and I have no idea what these two things are?
Also camera settings like Jpeg or DNG or what type of video you are recording would be nice to know.

 

[Dani]

Hi Dani,
The problems people are recording with the login and the device creation are being worked on and by the end of the day or tomorrow I will have an improved app experience published. This is also base on the feedback of Agustine.


I am not sure what you meant in this part of the text. Do you have drones in the classrooms?

Sorry about this confusion. I have around 500 colleagues that are way smarter than me, but they struggle with what I call "basics". I try to make everything as simple as possible, for them and that requires a lot of thinking. How easy can it be? You enter the classroom, switch on the PC, point the remote at the beamer and press the red button, and finally flip the switch for the speakers. Still most of my days are filled with people who can't find the button to switch on the PC or something similar.. Some of them can't even find the PC!
So one has to take into account that it's not easy to make a good user interface and even if you think you've got it covered people mess it up. This is where I can help.
I'm already regretting i didn't point my camera at myself when trying your software, you'd be amazed what stupid things i did. But in the end I managed to get a good 2 minutes pop up in my basic free drohub account before I ran out of recording minutes. I have a lot of questions about what went good, why it went good, or was it the software that messed up or did I mess up, and why some things went wrong.
I'll make a list or better, a screen recording of my attempts. I'll get back to you but now it is Sunday evening and tomorrow is my first day of work after a long vacation. So don't expect feedback tomorrow.

Dani

 

[drohub]

Hello Agustine,

The lockup stability is a compromise with the low latency. If we want low latency, we cannot buffer some seconds of video to make the connection instability invisible. So if you want a stable video in a bad connection then you need to sacrifice latency, and buffer video ahead to compensate weak network. Other ways are Forward Error Correction codes, but i am not sure all browsers support it evenly. Can you tell me the browser you used?

The main scenario I am targeting is not to replicate video near the pilot, but in other remote places. My measurement is that you need consistent 1Mbit connection for downstream which i find pretty feasible in a 4G network. Could you elaborate a bit more on the scenario you meant? For LAN distribution plus forwarding to the Cloud, the topology becomes a bit more complicated and I do not support it yet, but it's pretty feasible actually.

Regarding the 2 points of interest you mentioned in the last picture:

• The signal symbol on the top left corner is supposed to represent the internet signal quality but, while i know how to gather information for the WiFi case, I do not know how to gather for mobile networks. Therefore, in the latest update I deleted that symbol.
• The number you mention is drone altitude in...meters. In the latest update I added an (m) suffix to the number so it becomes cleared. Do you think the icon needs rework?

Hey Dani,

Now I understand. You are right that a recording of the usage would be great feedback. If you record it with DROHUB I will be able to see it. From my research into the complaints of people i found some issues in the login and creation of the drone that I hope I improved. I made a release which was broken (1.0.2) and made a fix in (1.0.3). I have added minutes to all the subscriptions so you should now have pretty much infinite minutes. Thanks a lot!

 

[Jagerbomb52]

So that would be above mean sea level hopefully as I was no where near flying that high LOL
That should be made clear.