The main purpose for consumer users to purchase UAVs is aerial photography, but the following and ring photography can only be completed with skilled operation. This huge user threshold may not even be noticed by giants like Dajiang.
The FLYPRO Flying Leopard XEagle intelligent sports UAV we experience today is the first UAV that is truly redesigned for consumer class people in China. No matter what you know about UAV before, it may refresh your understanding of UAV. Now let's take a look at this novel UAV:
parameter
FLYPRO Flying Leopard XEagle sports version, price 3899 yuan
Three circumference 290 * 290 * 180mm (excluding propeller), diagonal wheelbase 350mm, weight 1270g
Hover accuracy: vertical ± 0.5m, horizontal ± 1m
Maximum following speed 15m/s, GPS/GLONASS dual mode
16 megapixel, 1/2.3 inch CMOS
F2.8 Aperture, wide angle horizontal 105 degrees, diagonal 140 degrees
2.8K@24fps ， 2.5K@30fps ， 1080P@60fps ， 720P@120fps
The maximum remote control distance of the smart watch is 300m, and the battery is 450mAh
5200mAh (57.7Wh) battery weight 370g, maximum flight time 22 minutes
Packaging and accessories
The FLYPRO Flying Leopard XEagle intelligent sports UAV is packed in a pure black paper box, the machine and accessories are protected by an environmental protection bracket, and the manual, warranty and other paper materials are in a black envelope.
FLYPRO makes great efforts to integrate the settings of the UAV. Except for the remote control watch (official name: XWatch) and the rotor bag, all other accessories are installed in the power box.
In the rotor flannelette bag are two sets of rotors attached with the machine. In the power box are the chargers for UAVs and remote control watches, as well as the spare feet for UAVs.
The maximum power output of the UAV is 12.6V/4A, 50.6W in total. The common two pin plug is used, and the battery end of the UAV is equipped with a cover.
The watch adopts a magnetic suction interface with anti dazzle design, which can only be adsorbed in the right direction, and the charger outputs 5V/1A. The watch has a built-in 450mAh battery, which takes about 1 hour to charge from 0-100.
Remote control watch
The biggest difference between the FLYPRO Flying Leopard XEagle and the common UAV is its remote control. The manufacturer has integrated the remote control and operation logic into the shape of a watch.
The appearance of the remote control watch XWatch is a magnified outdoor watch, and the back of the silicone strap has lines to improve breathability and wear comfort. The ring on the front dial is the 8 direction adjustment knob, and the side is the commonly used function button. The specific functions will be described in detail below.
Although the manufacturer has put the RF module and chip of UAV remote control into the watch, the XWatch is still a circle larger than the regular watch. Fortunately, the weight of the watch is light, and the silicone strap is soft and comfortable to wear. There is no problem in running, cycling, or even extreme sports with it.
UAV
The body of FLYPRO Flying Leopard XEagle is mainly silver and black, and the overall design is angular. The frosting treatment on the surface has a kind of reflection similar to metal, and the appearance is expected to be more palatable to technology users.
The name of XEagle has the meaning of "eagle", and the front direction light has a bionic design similar to the eagle eye. The rotor arm is not the common four opening of UAVs, but extends from the main arm of the forward swept wing design. But actually, after seeing this appearance, what I think of is the panther in the Avengers' Alliance who is wearing the gold war suit
The rotor has a logo of the manufacturer and simple painting. Adjacent motors have different colors of painting and hints on the installation direction of the rotor, so the anti dazzle design is well done.
FLYPRO Flying Leopard XEagle is equipped with 5200mAh battery, which can last about 20 minutes of flight time. The battery compartment is a pull out design, with its own power indicator light and UAV switch.
Pan tilt and bracket
The UAV comes with a PTZ protection bracket and lens cover.
FLYPRO Flying Leopard XEagle put the mirco USB interface for debugging on the PTZ bracket, and the hardness of the four silicone balls is medium to hard. The main components of the PTZ are made of metal, which is unexpectedly thick. Maybe it is to increase the "unsprung" weight to improve stability?
camera
The camera is fixed on the PTZ through the metal bracket and the mini USB interface on the side, and the camera can be pulled out by unscrewing the screws. Although this structure will increase the weight, it will leave room for the camera upgrade later, which is a design idea that the author agrees with more.
The layout of the built-in camera is similar to that of a sports camera. The front is the status display and switch, and the side is equipped with a selection button.
The card slot is tucked away at the bottom of the camera, so the memory card can be replaced directly without removing the camera. The back is the battery compartment. The battery capacity of the camera is 1600mAh, but the camera is directly powered by the UAV, so this data actually has no impact
app、 Camera and remote control
The machine adopts a self locking design, which can be tightened against the color. In addition, the startup mode of the machine is not the common "short press and long press" of UAVs, but is changed to the long press startup and shutdown that is closer to the beginner's logic.
This time we got the sports version of. Although its app can display image transmission pictures in a short distance (within 10m), its main purpose is to wirelessly export pictures and videos taken by UAVs. The flight control function is only available on the later advanced and professional versions.
The mobile phone can be connected after connecting to the camera wifi. It can take real-time view and adjust the exposure, resolution, video definition and frame rate. Even the buffer duration can be customized. The default buffer duration is 300ms (0.3 seconds). The actual image delay of the machine is about 3 seconds, similar to common motion cameras.
In terms of practical operation, the most special feature of XEagle is its remote control. It makes the heavy remote control of common UAVs into a "smart watch", retains the one button takeoff, return and other buttons, and makes the surround and follow functions only available to high-level UAVs into buttons.
The dial wheel and dial knob can control the flight height and adjust the direction, and the top is the shutter for photographing and video recording. The watch can display the strength of the connection and GPS signal. Below is the relative height and horizontal distance between the UAV and the watch. At the bottom is the flight status and flight time prediction of the UAV.
Actual operation and use
FLYPRO Flying Leopard XEagle is one of the very few UAVs that can truly operate in a minimalist manner. The operation has undergone a radical transformation for 360 degree circle shooting and target following. The most intuitive change is to cancel the direction and thrust/direction control rocker on UAV remote control, and push buttons for actual operation.
Because the operation mode is completely different, the following describes the operation in the order of use. After the remote control and UAV are powered on, there is no need for manual correction. The machine and watch will position themselves by GPS, and take off after the indicator light under the arm turns green:
Takeoff: press and hold one key for 4 seconds to take off, the watch vibrates and unlocks the motor to take off, and the machine will automatically hover after taking off;
Return: short press to descend vertically, click again during landing to enter hover, long press to start return. If the flight altitude is less than 15m, the machine will fly to 15m and then return to the takeoff point for vertical descent. During the return flight, press briefly to enter hover.
Shutter: short press to take a picture, long press to record. When recording, there will be a flashing icon on the watch.
The above is the most common operation of UAV, and different parts of the painting style are coming:
Height adjustment knob: In hover and surround modes, the machine can be controlled to rise/fall by rolling up/down the knob. In the follow mode, pushing it will move up and down 1 meter.
Ring bearing knob: although the machine PTZ has the ability to automatically track the target, the UAV hovers after intense action, and the flight buffer action in the process may cause the lens direction and the target to be misaligned for a short time, so the dial is added with eight bearing knobs for precise adjustment of the UAV position.
360 Surround key: press briefly to start a 360 circle around the user at a distance of 5 meters, and press briefly to stop. Press briefly when hovering, and the machine will be centered around 10 meters in front of the head. This mode is used to shoot fixed scenery.
One button follow button: after a short press, the machine will keep a horizontal distance of 5 meters from the watch wearer to follow, and then a short press again will stop following. In addition, the height limit of this mode is 50 meters, and the minimum height is 3 meters.
Contour following: This is a built-in recognition function, without operation, but it is also a very important and practical feature. When climbing mountains or shooting at a site with obvious slope, the UAV is required to follow the height change of the target for height adjustment, to ensure that the UAV will not hit the obstacles at any time when following, and to ensure the smoothness of the shooting picture.
Use experience and feeling
The XEagle UAV adopts a completely different technical route from the vision recognition and zero TOF/ultrasonic obstacle avoidance of Xinjiang. Feibao made the remote control into a watch and added GPS positioning, so that the UAV can automatically circle and follow the user's position. The whole solution is simple and crude, which saves a lot of circuit and mechanical structure and is more reliable.
The biggest use experience of the machine must be worry free. Without any training, you can directly manipulate the UAV by clicking the button according to the instructions, and the surrounding and following operations that previously had to be carried out smoothly by middle and high-level users can also be directly realized. What is worth mentioning is its position control mode. Because there is no common rocker, the machine needs to move in the follow mode. The user controls the position and direction of the UAV through actual walking, just like playing AR games such as Pok é mon GO.
In this way, we can let the UAV automatically follow the video when we run and ride. Because the GPS signal of the watch is followed, the UAV will not lose track of it whether it is in front of or behind, or suddenly changes direction or accelerates. Moreover, the maximum speed of the UAV is 50 km/h, and it can follow normally even when sitting in the car.
In addition, the camera of the UAV always automatically follows the operator's movement, whether it is a 360 degree circle shot or a follow. With the direction and height knobs, it can take a high force picture of the movie around rising/falling.
The remote control is directly integrated into the watch, which also brings a completely different meaning - the UAV operator and the photographed person can be the same person, that is to say, even if only one person can shoot the aerial video you see online. It can free the user's hands when exercising outdoors. To some extent, it is actually a high-tech self timer tool.
Flight performance and imaging quality
In actual flight, the wind resistance and response speed of the machine are good. It can also be found in the video that the rotation of the PTZ is relatively smooth when it automatically follows the photographer, which is more than enough for shooting outdoor sports video collections.
In terms of imaging, the camera of the machine is equipped with 1/2.3 inch CMOS, which can take 16 million pixels of pictures with a resolution of 4608 * 3456. It supports 2.8K@24fps 、 2.5K@30fps 、 1080P@60fps 、 720P@120fps Video capture. Lens F2.8 aperture, official wide angle horizontal 105 degrees, diagonal 140 degrees, belongs to the level of ultra wide angle, the camera has its own support picture correction, but will lose part of the definition.
We shoot with the default wide-angle highest pixel. The camera's field of view is more than twice that of a normal mobile phone, and the first impression is quite shocking. As a price, there will be obvious wide-angle distortion at the edge of the picture, which will affect the discrimination. The automatic white balance of the machine is relatively accurate, the metering is conservative, and the tolerance is high. More than 3 p.m. on cloudy days, even if HDR/WDR (high dynamic range) is not turned on, it is enough to accommodate the sky in the light and the shadow details in the dark. The overall photographic performance of the camera is remarkable.
For the video part, we use 2.5K30fps more suitable for the motion scene to shoot and open WDR. As can be seen from the video screenshot, after the WDR is turned on, the machine's light metering is obviously brightened, the image appearance is brighter than that seen by the naked eye, and the dark details are quite rich. The difference between the ultimate analytical power of the video and the proof is small, which is quite a surprise.
summary
FLYPRO Flying Leopard XEagle intelligent UAV, just like customized for outdoor sports and tourism lovers, is simple enough to operate with one hand, and does not need to rely on a second person to shoot, which can enable us to focus more on the fun of sports and tourism.
However, this setting is not perfect. First of all, we can't control the speed and distance when we surround. Although shooting is easy, there are few controls. The inability to directly control the direction setting will make senior UAV users feel less secure.
However, even though its use restrictions are more than those of Dajiang and Xiaomi UAVs, for most users who want to follow and surround aerial photography, this customized UAV, which is designed to simplify operation, is more like a tool for professional use.
