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Follow Me Android App, Beta testers needed for my Tello Vision 1D

pgminin

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During italian lockdown I managed to develop my little Android App.
It implements Computer Vision Object Detection and 1D Follow Me (Person Tracking)

Tello Vision 1D is in public beta testing on Google Play.

If you are interested to help me on adding those capabilities to our powerfull Tello become a beta tester following this link:

Sign in - Google Accounts


See the video demo here:

 
Become a beta tester:

Sign in - Google Accounts

You need a gmail google account.
And a decent recent Android Smartphone.
Multicore are usefull in real time object detection!

Here more info, a quick start and a descriptive screenshot:

Experience real time object detection and person tracking with your little DJI Ryze Tello Drone.
"Tello Vision 1D" allows 1D person tracking making Tello rotate as detected person moves. It can even rotate to search for persons than follow them.
If more than one person is detected it follows persons' horizontal positions baricenter.
It records 960x720 video at 30 fps in mp4 format (without detection boxes overlay).
With "Tello Vision 1D" test your smartphone capabilities in real time object detection. Inference time must be less than 100 ms and won't work properly on older smartphone.
Have fun!!!

Quick start:
Connect your phone to Tello as usual, launch this app and press COMM button to enter SDK mode.
Now start Tello video streaming and mp4 video recording pressing VID ON button.
After few seconds you will see live video on your phone with boxes and names of real time detected objects!
In the detected person box you will find an estimation of Tello-person distance. and detection confidence percentual

Other buttons explanation:
TKOFF to takeoff, press again to LAND
GO UP to ascend
HOVER to stop
GO DOWN to descend
TRIM + to increase rotation speed gain
TRIM - to decrease rotation speed gain
JPEG to save current 960x720 frame as JPEG picture.
1D PERSON TRACKING to let Tello rotates as detected person moves
1D SEARCH AND TRACKING to put Tello in rotation until it detects a person then Tello rotates as detected person moves
Write and send other Tello SDK commands like "flip f" or "forward 80" using text input and SEND button.

06_tello_vision_1D_promo_01.jpg
 
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Grazie.. mi sono iscritto e sto scaricando l'applicazione.. sembra molto interessante
Posso testarla su 3 telefoni Samsung...
A presto e buon lavoro

Inviato dal mio ZFlip utilizzando Tapatalk
 
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Grazie.. mi sono iscritto e sto scaricando l'applicazione.. sembra molto interessante
Posso testarla su 3 telefoni Samsung...
A presto e buon lavoro

Inviato dal mio ZFlip utilizzando Tapatalk

Great! You are the first, let me know!
(y)
 
I did a quick test on my ZFlip.. and found that video preview is very very slow.. even if this model is/it should be very fast..
Do you confirm that it only rotates while tracking ? (1D)
Do you plan to add also following?
Will test better tomorrow
Bye

Inviato dal mio ZFlip utilizzando Tapatalk
 
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Hey, good job, I'll give it a try tomorrow if the weather allows me to.

cheers

This version is focused on core functionalities (video feed, person detection) and basic 1D tracking, so you set tello vertical position and then, when you activate 1D tracking, tello just rotates on its vertical axis following you.
Thanks to Tello great (but not perfect!) stability, in rooms with good light conditions, you can try this app even indoor.
As said, I developed it indoor in lockdown and tested few times outdoor.
Anyway stay away from your new 100 inches tv and always use it carefully!
 
Last edited:
I did a quick test on my ZFlip.. and found that video preview is very very slow.. even if this model is/it should be very fast..
Do you confirm that it only rotates while tracking ? (1D)
Do you plan to add also following?
Will test better tomorrow
Bye

Inviato dal mio ZFlip utilizzando Tapatalk

Thanks for your quick but for me very usefull try!
Video preview is fixed at 2fps (500ms) to give slack time for other tasks (object detection and video decoding/recording in real time).
What is your detection time?
Did you get a good quality in recorded video? You can find it in the Download folder.
Wifi extender is always raccomanded.

Now I'm working on full 3D implementation, the plan is to port on Android what I've done on Python on my PC. You can find few examples on my youtube channel:

 
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Good job, great video... I can really appreciate the work and effort you put into this, but only from a layman's point of view 'so to speak'.

Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing the developments... please keep us posted, thanks!

BTW, beautiful countryside, would love to live in a place like that
 
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TESTED on phone HUAWEY Y9 2019
ANDROID 9

Hello good day, now I have been testing the application, and it really has a future and I will leave some comments regarding my experience:

First I think that this application has a future and is just being born.

It makes all its functions go up, go down, stop at a single point, take off, follow the object, search for the object, receive commands and transmit video, the search speed definitely does not notice it.

Now I want to leave a few comments regarding possible improvements:

Find the object faster.

Do not deviate from your position when finding the object or when searching.

Video playback is very frozen and you should be able to record video without that much terrazzo. (I don't know if it will be my phone model)

As much as I try to take a photo I could not, and it would be good to improve that aspect.

Well this is my humble test and I hope that with my comments you can positively improve the application in development.

Test:
 
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TESTED on phone HUAWEY Y9 2019
ANDROID 9

Hello good day, now I have been testing the application, and it really has a future and I will leave some comments regarding my experience:

First I think that this application has a future and is just being born.

It makes all its functions go up, go down, stop at a single point, take off, follow the object, search for the object, receive commands and transmit video, the search speed definitely does not notice it.

Now I want to leave a few comments regarding possible improvements:

Find the object faster.

Do not deviate from your position when finding the object or when searching.

Video playback is very frozen and you should be able to record video without that much terrazzo. (I don't know if it will be my phone model)

As much as I try to take a photo I could not, and it would be good to improve that aspect.

Well this is my humble test and I hope that with my comments you can positively improve the application in development.

Test:

I appreciate your video and your comments very much, they definetly help me to improve the user experience!
Tomorrow I will reply in more details and code/tune it better!

Thanks
 
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Some more feedback...
1) video are saved properly .. just a couple of video was corrupted (maybe they wasn't closed properly)
2) photo is also saved properly (960x720)
3) detection time on my ZFlip is about 12/13ms (will test on other less powerfull device soon)
4) video preview sometimes doesn't start at all (I see the rectangle but the video background is not "updated").. have to try many times to get it working ..
5) about video preview performance (didn't know it was "blocked" at 2fps.. but I understand the reason) .. why don't you give the possibility - if the phone is powerfull enough and if it's not complicated to add - to increase the fps (maybe up to 8/10) with a setting in the GUI? A more fluid preview is really important to get a better "user experience"..
Anyway.. you made a very good job!
Can't wait to see a more complete app.. with more functionality..
Tello is a nice toy.. with such app becomes much more funny!
Bye
 
  • Like
Reactions: pgminin
TESTED on phone HUAWEY Y9 2019
ANDROID 9

Hello good day, now I have been testing the application, and it really has a future and I will leave some comments regarding my experience:

First I think that this application has a future and is just being born.

It makes all its functions go up, go down, stop at a single point, take off, follow the object, search for the object, receive commands and transmit video, the search speed definitely does not notice it.

Now I want to leave a few comments regarding possible improvements:

Find the object faster.

Do not deviate from your position when finding the object or when searching.

Video playback is very frozen and you should be able to record video without that much terrazzo. (I don't know if it will be my phone model)

As much as I try to take a photo I could not, and it would be good to improve that aspect.

Well this is my humble test and I hope that with my comments you can positively improve the application in development.

Test:

Your screenrecorded video is very meaningfull for me, I cannot ask more to understand problems! Thanks for your effort!

About Search Speed
I'll increase rotational search speed

About Trim+ and Trim-
Those buttons don't relate to "search speed" but to "following speed gain" when you are yet detected.
Press Trim+ to make Tello following you faster
Press Trim- to make Tello slower but more stable.
At the end of your video you pressed Trim+ to much so Tello become unstable and started to oscillate.
Btw I know this is a power user feature that I didn't explained well

About JPEG
I must improve this functionality. Files are saved in Pictures folder (internal sdcard), but even in my tests I found it not very reliable. Sometimes JPEG appears after reboot so there is a gallery update problem.

About Video Preview very slow
I naturally implemented Object Detection as an image oriented task so you are right: this is a frozen video or better said those are images at 2fps! I will do my best to increase this frame rate! On my older smartphone (two years) going to 4fps in the preview corrupt very much video recording task ... So the best will be to optimize frame rate on a hw base. Maybe letting the user select frame rate as suggested from Spanzetta is the way to go!
 
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An amazing app. I am interested in any drone applications that send video back. We have the Autel Evo for this reason. We are working on this with the Tello. We have the Droneblcok installed to do this with the Tello from Dennis Baldwin. it is working fine. Your app is very simple and worked right away with out a lot of accessory plug ins. We are located in Central Texas, USA. You can see our work on youtube mecatx. Keep up the good work. I will probably work on this with one of our mentored students who is working on micro-drone and min drones he is 12 years old and has all three amateur radio licenses. Now home bond from school for the spring semester. S, we are having to do much of the communication by ZOOM, and radio.
 
Some more feedback...
1) video are saved properly .. just a couple of video was corrupted (maybe they wasn't closed properly)
2) photo is also saved properly (960x720)
3) detection time on my ZFlip is about 12/13ms (will test on other less powerfull device soon)
4) video preview sometimes doesn't start at all (I see the rectangle but the video background is not "updated").. have to try many times to get it working ..
5) about video preview performance (didn't know it was "blocked" at 2fps.. but I understand the reason) .. why don't you give the possibility - if the phone is powerfull enough and if it's not complicated to add - to increase the fps (maybe up to 8/10) with a setting in the GUI? A more fluid preview is really important to get a better "user experience"..
Anyway.. you made a very good job!
Can't wait to see a more complete app.. with more functionality..
Tello is a nice toy.. with such app becomes much more funny!
Bye

Great Test Session & Feedback!.

I can state that there are two main issues here.
(Using your point numbers)

1) Some video are corrupted.
You have to press "Vid Off" to save your recording before exiting or putting in pause the app. Otherwise all video is lost.
This is very bad, I must fix it.
For now remember to manually stop recording!

4) Sometime Video Preview doesn't start (you see starting image and two detection boxes but detection time is fixed)
This happens if I start COMM then I put the app in pause (closing the screen or with the home button) then I reopen the app.
This is very bad also.
For now to fix this you have to clean the app from the paused apps list and restart a brand new execution completely.
(BTW a quick workaround for now)

In other words Tello Vision 1D is not robust against putting it in pause. I knew I must work on this.

About preview frame rate.
I'll work on it.

Finally 12 ms for detection on your ZFlip is awesome, I think unbeatable!!
 
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to fix the gallery refresh try MediaScannerConnection.scanFile


To increase video speed you will have to spearate rendering from the detection.
Render at full 30fps, and throttle detection to whatever the device can handle.

Great suggestions, I'll follow them!
Thank you!
We are waiting news from you!!
 
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Thanks for your quick but for me very usefull try!
Video preview is fixed at 2fps (500ms) to give slack time for other tasks (object detection and video decoding/recording in real time).
What is your detection time?
Did you get a good quality in recorded video? You can find it in the Download folder.
Wifi extender is always raccomanded.

Now I'm working on full 3D implementation, the plan is to port on Android what I've done on Python on my PC. You can find few examples on my youtube channel:


Seems very jerky?
 

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