Tello Drone

Tello Drone by DJI

Connection Type
Wi-Fi
Audio Support
No
Camera Support
Yes

Tello is an impressive and affordable little drone that's a blast to fly and helps users learn about drones with coding education. The high-resolution onboard camera can be used for computer vision tracking within ARC. With the camera fully compatible with the ARC camera device, there's no limit to what this drone can do! Use Javascript, Python, EZ-Script, C++, or .Net with ARC to program this DJI drone easily.



Get Started

ARC provides a robot skill that connects to the DJI Tello for movement controls and receiving the video feed. Follow the instructions in the robot skill by Clicking Here.


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PRO
USA
#1   — Edited

Will you be supporting other models of DJI series drones? I assume they are very similar? I have an older Phantom 4.

PRO
Synthiam
#2   — Edited

Only ones that can be controlled by WiFi can have robot skills. Remember, most of those drones, such as the Phantom 4 are controlled by RF. There may be some movement commands accepted over WiFi, but I'd have to check how much compatibility there is. Remember, RF is remote control from a handheld joystick device.

Also, If there's a robot or technology you want to add robot skills, here's the tutorial for creating robot skills: https://synthiam.com/Support/Create-Robot-Skill/Overview

PS, I don't have any other DJI drones to play with - this $99 tello is perfect for labs and indoor use :)

PRO
USA
#3  

Sounds good. I can’t fly the drone in the US (outside) now because FAA makes you basically get a pilots license to fly anything heavier than 300 grams. Reason DJI started making the mavic. Thinking of turning the Phantom into an indoor camera for shooting some shots for YouTube.

#4  

Will,  you only need the part 107 license to fly commercially (which does include posting to YouTube if you are monetized).  You are just flying for recreation, you just need a Small UAS Certificate of Registration which is good for 8 years and only costs a few dollars.

The Tello is well under 300 grams too (80 grams to be exact).  It is a toy and can't fly out of the Phone's WiFi range, so you don't even need the registration for that.

Alan

PRO
Synthiam
#5  

The Tello may be considered a toy but I can’t believe the stability and control. It’s pretty amazing

PRO
USA
#6  

That’s correct! I gave up keeping up with all the changes tho seemed like changes every few months.

The Mavic has been on my radar for sometime and I have some outdoor robots coming up and would be great to shoot that video with the Mavic. It’s too bad the resolution on the Tello is only 720.

PRO
Synthiam
#7  

I should add that it uses visual slam for stability and navigation. There’s a few features I’m adding that use Cartesian coordinates as well. It should be compatible with nms

im blown away with this drone. It’s popular with a number of our universities and I kept dismissing it because ... well, it seemed like a toy. An enterprise Education customer really wanted it - and I’m glad we did it. Because this thing is such a blast.

PRO
Canada
#8  

Nice addition DJ  I have one of these drones and a pile of batteries because it doesn't fly very long.   I wonder if you could come up with a way to get it to go on a mission and then self charge and go again. Maybe get it to find a Glyph and land in front of it on a charging pad. hmmm

PRO
Synthiam
#9  

You could do the landing easy enough. But not the charging as it’s usb

PRO
Canada
#10  

Naomi Wu built a charging mat design.

PRO
Synthiam
#11  

Right on. Do it! It works with the camera device and hopefully NMS soon. But the NMS requires specific coordinate commands, not just move forward. It’s kinda weird that way

PRO
Canada
#12  

Just had a quick play with the Tello.  Did you enable colour tracking and then turn the speed up.  LOL this is deadly. I guess I need to find the propeller guards.

PRO
Canada
#13  

Been having a play with this. lots of fun. Any thoughts around control commands for the drone.  Trying to write a quick script take off look around for an object. fly to object, get some video of the object and then land again.  Also is there a list of variables that it collects (battery level, height of drone etc)?

PRO
USA
#14  

I still have my old Phantom 2 + - still works, never tried it with ARC -  know if it will work?

PRO
Canada
#15   — Edited

not as is,  phantom uses an RC receiver so you would need to make a gateway and I don't think there is a supported SDK as they discontinued support for phantom 2 a couple of years ago.

You can buy a tello for ~$100 but at the moment you can only fly it with the tello Movement Panel and I haven't worked out how to tell it to take off or land or fly at a certain height etc, It doesn't have a GPS so way points and NMS doesn't look possible although DJ said he was looking into that a while ago (can't see how it would be possible though) The camera tracking works so that is pretty cool.

PRO
USA
#16   — Edited

my drone have it's own GPS and way points - my camera works well also

I going to test if the ARC can detect my drone's camera as soon as the battery charges - I will let you know

PRO
USA
#17  

I did test it, I am at my farm just a hot spot. My drone makes it's own Wi-Fi connection, I could not connect to ARC here nor my drome's camera.

I do connect on my hot spot (like now) for some internet connection.

Need to try this at home with real internet and a router