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Question to Developers/Modder's: Obstacle Avoidance/Crash prevention using GPS/MAP Data? on Anafi?

ionicdrone

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I was wondering, sorry if its a noob question - if it has GPS tracking integration, and maps etc.. cant we "mod" sort of obstacle avoidance/crash prevention feature using GPS/Map details? so GPS will tell drone where it should "avoid" ?

Thanks!
 
In order for GPS/Map details to be in any way able to help avoid obstacles the aircraft would need very high resolution data which is extremely large in size and most likely not available at a helpful resolution for all areas.
I know of no drones that use the strategy you presented as a form of obstacle avoidance.

I could see very high resolution LiDaR point clouds fitting the bill, but at the resolutions needed and the fact that the environment is dynamic and not static would be in my opinion against this.

I have a full high resolution LiDaR dataset for the city I work for and it does show larger powerlines and trees with large branches, it does not show smaller lines and branches.
 
I was wondering, sorry if its a noob question - if it has GPS tracking integration, and maps etc.. cant we "mod" sort of obstacle avoidance/crash prevention feature using GPS/Map details? so GPS will tell drone where it should "avoid" ?

Thanks!
The UAV would have to have some kind of dynamic sensing mechanism (eg, optical, LiDaR, IR, sonar, combination, etc.) building a localized mapping of the surroundings as well as some kind of obstacle avoidance strategy programmed.

Having a hi-res point-cloud map streamed to the UAV of the UAVs immediate surroundings would not suffice even with the UAV running an intelligent avoidance algorithm if only civilian GPS was used due to accuracy typically being off by 1-3 meters (best case).

UAV on-board sensor [or sensor arrays] with obstacle avoidance programming is used successfully, with both the location of the UAV and the obstacle(s) determined using means other than GPS only for more accuracy,

You can read about the strategy and methods successfully employed by the Anafi Ai's obstacle avoidance for a good real-world example:
How does ANAFI Ai’s obstacle avoidance work?

If one wanted to "retrofit" a UAV to have reasonable dynamic obstacle avoidance, the simplest way would be to use sonar transponders like Polaroid rangefinders for example attached to the UAV, feeding obstacle information into a control board and programmaticaly using the sensor data to avoid obstacles, like so:
Polaroid Ultrasonic Range Sensor Used for Obstacle Avoidance

Hope that gives you more of a clear idea of how it would be done quite well.
 

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