Next up in our “Ask Drone Girl” series, we’re stepping inside the gymnasium to tackle indoor sports filming! If you have a question for Drone Girl, contact her here.
I have a question for you about max indoor altitudes. I currently use a DJI Mini 3 to film our football practices, which are generally held outside. However, when we go to our indoor facility, the max height is 15 feet due to the lack of GPS signal. Do you know if the Mini 4 Pro, or the Avata series would have a greater indoor max altitude?
Filming sports is such a fantastic use case for drones, but man, those indoor GPS dead zones can really throw a wrench into getting those wide, high-angle shots!
When you fly DJI Mini 3 indoors, what I’m guessing is happening is that it loses satellite GPS lock. When that happens, the aircraft is automatically designed to switch from GPS Mode over to its Vision Positioning System (VPS) and infrared sensors. That’s a feature, not a bug, as back in the day, drones used to go haywire when they lost their GPS lock — often uncontrollably flying in the wrong direction.
Because the Mini 3 relies heavily on its downward optical sensors to keep from drifting, my hypothesis is that DJI set a conservative safety cap on how high it will let you climb (often capping out around 15 feet as you mention). This prevents the drone from getting confused by low light or uniform turf.
The DJI Mini 3 is one of DJI’s most affordable drones, but it does have some technical limitations that can be solved by higher-end drones. With, that, consider:
1. DJI Mini 4 Pro
Upgrading to the DJI Mini 4 Pro will give you a noticeable boost indoors. Unlike the Mini 3, the Mini 4 Pro features an upgraded Omnidirectional Vision System with enhanced downward, upward and 3D infrared sensors. In practice, its vision positioning system can reliably track its altitude indoors up to 30 to 33 feet (around 10 meters) off the ground without GPS, provided your indoor facility has good lighting.
Buy it from:
Read my full review of the DJI Mini 4 Pro here.
2. DJI Avata 2
If you’re open to an FPV-style setup, the DJI Avata 2 is practically built for indoor environments.
Because it’s an FPV drone with built-in prop guards, the Avata series handles GPS-denied environments much more smoothly. While it still uses downward vision sensors for stable hovering, its flight controller allows for more manual control, meaning it won’t hit that rigid 15-foot artificial limit as long as the pilot maintains steady stick inputs.
Plus, the prop guards give you massive peace of mind when flying near indoor lighting rigs, rafters, or high-flying footballs!
More tricks to try to use your current setup
I’d hate for you to unnecessarily spend more money and buy a drone if you don’t need to. Before you pull the trigger on an entirely new drone, I do recommend first trying these indoor flight hacks to help your current Mini 3 sensors perform better:
- Boost the indoor lighting: Vision positioning sensors rely on light. Are you able to turn on more lights in the facility to help the downward camera pick up contrast on the turf?
- Add floor contrast: Uniform green artificial turf can trick downward optical sensors because it all looks the same from above. Setting down high-contrast landing pads, bright orange cones or yard-line markers directly under your hover area gives the drone visual anchors to lock onto.
- Set loss of signal to “Hover”: In your DJI Fly app settings, make sure your Loss of Signal action is set to Hover, not Return to Home (RTH). If RTH triggers indoors without GPS, the drone will attempt to automatically climb to its preset RTH altitude and could hit the ceiling!
Good luck with filming football season, and happy flying!
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