A Review of DJI’s Mavic Pro Precision Landing Accuracy

Abstract

For a relatively inexpensive, over-the-counter Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), the DJI Mavic Pro comes standard equipped with unique sensors and proprietary algorithms to assist in the overall automation and ease of use (DJI, 2017). This design opened the potential use of the Mavic Pro from initial hobby introduction to commercial UAS operations by capturing high-resolution images and video (Zhang &Kovacs, 2012; Zhong et al., 2018). One distinctive function of the Mavic Pro is its ability to conduct a “Precision Landing,” assisting the device to autonomously land when specific terrain features match a recorded takeoff image from its downward positioning cameras (DJI, 2017). Precision landings can be beneficial for safety, efficiency, or unique mission specifications (Borowczyk et al., 2017; Kaljahi et al., 2019; Rohan et al., 2018). For example, Rohan et al. (2018) found that autonomous operations are less effective when drones cannot land precisely within 100mm of a target when conducting wireless battery charging.