Best Practices to Connect an Emlid Reach RS2 Base to an Autel Evo II Pro Enterprise RTK Drone

jmason702 · Jul 6, 2022

Might of been your location vs satellites in the air or your data connection

elphtrooper · Jul 6, 2022

Malli35998 said:
The screen capture shows 22 satellites visible to the Autel Evo 2 Enterprise RTK receiver. In this one area, I could not get from FLOAT to FIX. How many satellites does it take to get the Autel Evo 2 Enterprise drone into FIX positioning mode? Is it a magic number of satellites or the type of satellite (GPS, BDS, GLONASS, Galileo) that makes the difference? Other?

Ours takes at least 10 minutes to fix. A couple of reboots, a couple of walkabouts and it just creeps down from 150cm errors to 15cm and the lower it goes the smaller the increment of improvement is. Then all of the sudden it fixes. It has been happening to us with 2 different aircraft and it just so happens I reported this to them today. I also requested that they give us more information and the ability to adjust GNSS settings. Just seeing the number of satellites does nothing for understanding the actual state of the corrections and the validity of the satellites being used.

Dave Pitman · Jul 6, 2022

elphtrooper said:
Ours takes at least 10 minutes to fix. A couple of reboots, a couple of walkabouts and it just creeps down from 150cm errors to 15cm and the lower it goes the smaller the increment of improvement is. Then all of the sudden it fixes.

That is painful. The inconsistency in the gear is astonishing. My unit attains FIX in less than a minute, usually.

elphtrooper · Jul 6, 2022

Dave Pitman said:
That is painful. The inconsistency in the gear is astonishing. My unit attains FIX in usually less than a minute.

You are on Enterprise with RTK? I think I have gotten a fix in less than 3 minutes twice.

Dave Pitman · Jul 6, 2022

Correct.

elphtrooper · Jul 6, 2022

Dave Pitman said:
Correct.

NTRIP or local? I am trying to get a couple of hotspots from other carriers and maybe a repeater for my truck. Thing is though that our Emlid gear has no issues. Nor did the Yuneec.

Dave Pitman · Jul 7, 2022

elphtrooper said:
NTRIP or local? I am trying to get a couple of hotspots from other carriers and maybe a repeater for my truck. Thing is though that our Emlid gear has no issues. Nor did the Yuneec.

Both typical network and Emlid Local hook up equally well. So far anyway. Hope I didn't jinx it.

Malli35998 · Jul 7, 2022

Dave Pitman said:
That is painful. The inconsistency in the gear is astonishing. My unit attains FIX in less than a minute, usually.

elphtrooper said:
Ours takes at least 10 minutes to fix. A couple of reboots, a couple of walkabouts and it just creeps down from 150cm errors to 15cm and the lower it goes the smaller the increment of improvement is. Then all of the sudden it fixes. It has been happening to us with 2 different aircraft and it just so happens I reported this to them today. I also requested that they give us more information and the ability to adjust GNSS settings. Just seeing the number of satellites does nothing for understanding the actual state of the corrections and the validity of the satellites being used.

This has been more my experience with the Evo ii Enterprise RTK drone I am using. It is generally never very quick (certainly not less than a minute) to attain FIX.

Dave Pitman · Jul 7, 2022

Malli35998 said:
This has been more my experience with the Evo ii Enterprise RTK drone I am using. It is generally never very quick (certainly not less than a minute) to attain FIX.

While my unit and @jmason702 's unit hook up quick.
I also have a P4RTK and my Evo2 Fixes quicker than the P4 as a general rule.
I doubt it matters, but just for a data point, I am 3 FW versions behind current.

elphtrooper · Jul 7, 2022

Dave Pitman said:
While my unit and @jmason702 's unit hook up quick.
I also have a P4RTK and my Evo2 Fixes quicker than the P4 as a general rule.
I doubt it matters, but just for a data point, I am 3 FW versions behind current.

I thought @jmason702 was running v1 Evo's. Which version firmware do you have on the Enterprise (v2)? I have been through the last 3 a couple of times and all of them exhibited the same behaviour. Perhaps there is something in our area that the Evo GNSS doesn't like

. @Malli35998, where in the world are you?

jmason702 · Jul 7, 2022

Dave Pitman said:
While my unit and @jmason702 's unit hook up quick.
I also have a P4RTK and my Evo2 Fixes quicker than the P4 as a general rule.
I doubt it matters, but just for a data point, I am 3 FW versions behind current.

yes, my V1s get a fix in seconds, both of them. @Dave Pitman how do you feel about the P4P RTK vs EVO RTK, just curious?

Dave Pitman · Jul 7, 2022

elphtrooper said:
I thought @jmason702 was running v1 Evo's. Which version firmware do you have on the Enterprise (v2)? I have been through the last 3 a couple of times and all of them exhibited the same behaviour. Perhaps there is something in our area that the Evo GNSS doesn't like . @Malli35998, where in the world are you?

Yes, Jeff is using v.1 but I suspect the GNSS end of the craft is the same, but not sure.
I'm running fw: 2.1.77 and SC App: 1.0.67 on the Evo2 (v.2) Ent. w/ RTK module.

Dave Pitman · Jul 7, 2022

jmason702 said:
@Dave Pitman how do you feel about the P4P RTK vs EVO RTK, just curious?

Give me some more time and I'll be able to give a better comparison. There are certainly pros and cons to both though none seems like a slam-dunk winner over the other. So far anyway.

Dave Pitman · Jul 7, 2022

There is new FW out today (2.3.23). Release notes are...wait for it...non existent (like usual). Pay attention to files for use with each device as it seems Autel has changed the naming scheme for AE...again.

EVOIIProRelatedDownloads-V2OfficialFirmware

www.autelrobotics.com

Malli35998 · Jul 20, 2022

I tried shooting a 30 acres test thermal survey yesterday with my Dual 640R camera. After the 1st battery change I could not get the drone (setup as a rover with an Emlid Reach RS2 as the base) to obtain an RTK FIX position. No matter what I tried it stayed in FLOAT. I eventually turned off RTK so I could complete the Mission.

elphtrooper · Jul 20, 2022

Malli35998 said:
I tried shooting a 30 acres test thermal survey yesterday with my Dual 640R camera. After the 1st battery change I could not get the drone (setup as a rover with an Emlid Reach RS2 as the base) to obtain an RTK FIX position. No matter what I tried it stayed in FLOAT. I eventually turned off RTK so I could complete the Mission.

Does that mean you were using local NTRIP? That's the only way I can fly and Autel has pretty much ghosted me. The next person they get to talk to is our CFO and that dude's ruthless. You don't sell someone a $5K+ piece of hardware that half works and not expect repercussions.

Malli35998 · Jul 20, 2022

elphtrooper said:
Does that mean you were using local NTRIP? That's the only way I can fly and Autel has pretty much ghosted me. The next person they get to talk to is our CFO and that dude's ruthless. You don't sell someone a $5K+ piece of hardware that half works and not expect repercussions.

I use the Emlid Caster to connect the RS2 and the Evo 2 Enterprise RTK drone. I can connect to the RTK service fine on both but getting the drone to FIX can be (generally is) very problematic especially after a battery change.

elphtrooper · Jul 20, 2022

Malli35998 said:
I use the Emlid Caster to connect the RS2 and the Evo 2 Enterprise RTK drone. I can connect to the RTK service fine on both but getting the drone to FIX can be (generally is) very problematic especially after a battery change.

Yeah, NTRIP via cellular has been trash for us. I did two flights yesterday logging into the receiver itself for local NTRIP and it fixes within seconds just like my rover so whether I have a good signal or not that's the way I'm going to do it until they decide they want to fix it.

Malli35998 · Jul 20, 2022

elphtrooper said:
Yeah, NTRIP via cellular has been trash for us. I did two flights yesterday logging into the receiver itself for local NTRIP and it fixes within seconds just like my rover so whether I have a good signal or not that's the way I'm going to do it until they decide they want to fix it.

Please elaborate on the steps you take to log directly into the RS2 for local NTRIP. I am still pretty new to using RS2. Thanks in advance.

Dave Pitman · Jul 20, 2022

Malli35998 said:
Please elaborate on the steps you take to log directly into the RS2 for local NTRIP. I am still pretty new to using RS2. Thanks in advance.

When starting up, do not turn on your hotspot. When the RS2 cannot find a wifi connection, it will enable it's own wifi indidcated by the connection icon turning white instead of blue. Then you can connect to the RS2's network with your phone and/or Smart Controller.