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ARGUS User Manual

DJI flight tasks

A flight task is a WPML-KMZ waypoint mission dispatched to a DJI dock. ARGUS generates the KMZ from your drone mission plan, uploads it to S3, registers a DJI wayline, and drives the dock through prepare → execute → in-flight progress → complete.

Dispatching a task

  1. Open a drone mission plan in the planner.
  2. Make sure it’s assigned to a dock (Assignment → pick a dock).
  3. Click Dispatch. ARGUS:
    • Converts the plan to DJI WPML KMZ via kmz-generator.ts. Embeds globalHeight, executeHeight, takeOffSecurityHeight, payloadLensIndex, etc. per DJI spec.
    • Uploads via 10-minute presigned S3 PUT.
    • Creates a dji_flight_tasks/{id} doc.
    • Writes a dji_commands doc of type flight_task_prepare.
    • argus-dji picks it up and publishes MQTT flighttask_prepare with the wayline + dock + metadata.
  4. Dock ACKs. Prepares — cover opens, aircraft power-on, GPS lock, pre-flight checks.
  5. Once DJI reports ready, ARGUS automatically follows up with flighttask_execute. Aircraft takes off.

You don’t have to manually fire “execute” after “prepare” — it’s chained for you.

Following progress

During execution you see:

  • Drone stream tile — live video + HUD.
  • Flight log — every waypoint-reached, mode-change, HMS alert.
  • Mission progress panel (from the fleet tile) —
    • Waypoint index / total.
    • Percent distance covered.
    • Estimated time remaining.
    • current_step from DJI.
    • step_key for substate within a step.

Break-point snapshots (the dock-side “where was the drone when it paused” state) are persisted so a resumed flight picks up correctly.

Controlling a running task

The mission progress panel exposes:

  • Pause — aircraft hovers at current waypoint. The dock ACKs before the UI flips state — no optimistic UI.
  • Resume — unpause.
  • Stop — return to home immediately (aborts remaining waypoints).
  • Abort setup — only during preparation; cancels before takeoff.
  • Return home — explicit RTH.
  • Return to specific home — RTH but to a non-default point (supplied lat/lng/alt).
  • Deliver in-flight wayline — replace the active wayline with a new KMZ while flying. Used by multi-dock relay for handoffs.
  • Stop in-flight wayline — stop the delivered wayline but keep the aircraft flying.
  • Cancel in-flight wayline — cancel + start RTH.
  • Recover in-flight wayline — re-dispatch from last break-point.

Each button maps to a dji_commands doc type and goes through argus-dji → dock.

Service-reply handling

Every MQTT command the dock receives gets an ACK (service-reply). ARGUS distinguishes:

  • Pre-execution failures — prepare / pre-takeoff fail → task goes FAILED, dock released.
  • In-flight failures — execute / pause / resume / stop fail during a flight → ARGUS reverts the optimistic state but keeps the task alive and reports the error with a DJI error code translated via our 448-code dictionary.

The UI surfaces the error code + description via the master-caution strip.

Flight-task statuses

  • SENT — command sent, awaiting dock ACK.
  • CANCELLED — explicitly cancelled by operator.
  • REJECTED — dock rejected (dock-side error).
  • TIMEOUT — ACK didn’t arrive in time.
  • PARTIAL_DONE — some waypoints completed, then aborted.
  • SUCCESS — full success.
  • FAILED — ran but failed to complete.

Timeline + report integration

Every task transition writes to the mission timeline + the flight-log. Completed tasks also auto-feed into the mission report.

Known limitations

  • No in-flight waypoint insert. You can deliver a fresh KMZ but can’t add a single waypoint to an already-running one.
  • No in-flight RTH-altitude change — that’s fixed at dispatch time.
  • No scheduled dispatch from the task — use the scheduling on the mission itself for delayed-start flights.