8
After Flight Capabilities
8.1
microSD card care
The partition that is visible under Windows and that contains the tagged pictures, also contains hidden
boot files necessary for
DROTAG
to boot and start. If you blindly format the card you will also erase this
boot files needing to re-image the card, which is a time wasting effort. Reiterating
DO NOT FORMAT
THE CARD IN WINDOWS
. If you delete your pictures just delete the directories with single numbers on
it’s name, although any other files should be hidden. You can find out more in section 8.2.
8.2
File structure
When the Drone has landed the pictures are ready to be used and tagged with the geographical coordi-
nates. The structure of the card is organized by
X/X_Y.jpg
.
•
X
is the directory name. It is a sequential number that increases each power-cycle of DROTAG.
DROTAG sequentially checks if the X directory already exists in the root of the microSD card. If it
does not exist a new directory is created and pictures will written to it. The prefix of
X
in the file
name also makes the image have a unique file name, making it useful to track the same mission
waypoint over different flights.
•
Y
is a sequential number reflecting the number of the picture in a given
DROTAG
power-cycle.
To finalize with an example, take the following scenario: The SD card doesn’t have any directory and is
connected to the power once, executes a flight of 4 points and returns to base. When the operator takes
the card off the
DROTAG
board and inserts it into a card reader, the file structure should be the following:
9
Troubleshooting
9.1
Significant delay in pictures
This happens if the camera was not configured with manual settings. The automatic modes of the cam-
eras always take a certain amount of time find the correct settings. Not only can it take long for the
automatic focus to settle but it can also find that long exposure times are adequate. Possible actions are:
1. Follow the recommended setting provided in the appendix.
2. Abnormal behavior. Contact us.
6