After conducting research and reading through forum posts, I have come to realize that obstacles, especially trees, pose a significant problem if the drone moves out of sight, such as between or under trees. What could be the solution here? Could I possibly place some kind of signal booster or intermediate antenna on top of a tall tree or building between me and the drone, which would receive the RC signal and relay it back to the drone, thus creating a solid connection?
Alternatively, if I am situated on one side of a hill, could I place a signal booster on top of the hill and fly the drone on the other side without experiencing any signal loss?
First off, tree branches may not provide enough “substance” for the OA to “see” them; that is the issue. However, if you are in the USA (and most other countries…), all the boost in the world will not make what you propose a violation of the FAA rules (or your countrie’s rules and regulations…) to maintain Visual Line of Sight of the Drone…
@TopMove I don’t know the flying rules in Austria, but you might want to check whether or not flying BVLOS is legal before proceeding further.
To answer your question, you’d probably need some kind of device that is able to repeat the signal to navigate around/over solid objects like houses or hills. I’ve never seen such a device for DJI drones.
For tree branches, you could install a 3rd party signal booster on your remote controller if one exists.
A repeater would be tough to implement. One option is an higher gain antenna for your controller which will increase the gain for both the uplink and downlink. This is the solution I use for my Google V2 connected to either an Avata or an FPV.
@Msinger referenced the country “Austria” and if @Topmove is located there then the Drone Flight Rules and Regulations are the same as the European Union and this is a direct quote…
“The drone must be flown in direct sight of the pilot, the distance between the pilot and the drone must not exceed 500 metres”