Product Notes

The D-80Pro pod is equipped with a Class 3B non-visible laser illumination module. Do not look directly at the laser beam (≤12m) or use optical instruments to observe it while the illumination module is active. Flammable objects must not be placed within 20cm in front of the module.
After use, store the device securely in the D-80 packaging box. The recommended storage environment has a relative humidity below 40% and a temperature of 20±5°C. If lens fogging occurs, it will typically dissipate after the device has been powered on for a period.
Avoid exposing the pod to direct sunlight, poorly ventilated environments, or near heat sources such as radiators or heaters.
Do not frequently power the pod on/off. Wait at least 30 seconds after shutdown before restarting to avoid shortening the device’s lifespan.
Ensure the pod’s interfaces and surfaces are clean and dry before installation.
Before use, confirm that the pod is securely mounted on the carrier platform, the microSD card cover is clean, free of debris, and properly closed.
Wipe the surface clean before opening the microSD card cover.
Do not insert or remove the microSD card while the device is powered on.
Avoid touching the camera lens with bare hands or scratching it with hard objects, as this may cause blurring or degrade image quality.
When cleaning the lens, use a soft, dry cloth. Do not use alkaline cleaners.
Without valid carrier inertial navigation data, the pod’s yaw axis will drift approximately 15° per hour due to Earth’s rotation. To ensure accurate, drift-free positioning, transmit valid inertial navigation data to the pod (typically requiring valid GNSS positioning from the carrier).
The pod will enter protection mode and recenter if the shock-absorbing platform tilts beyond 45° (except in FPV mode).

Product Overview

Introduction

The D-80Pro pod features a high-precision three-axis non-orthogonal gimbal, an 8.29-megapixel 40x zoom camera, and a laser illumination module, enabling clear imaging even in total darkness. Its auto-tracking function locks onto and continuously follows selected targets within the frame.

The pod supports both upright and inverted tool-free installation on various UAVs or carrier platforms. Paired with the GCU and Dragonfly software, it enables real-time display and control on a PC, including photo/video capture.

Key Features

Equipped with 8.29 megapixel 40x zoom camera, video resolution 4K@30fps, photo resolution 3840×2160.
The laser lighting module ensures that the camera can still take clear images in a completely light free environment.
With automatic target tracking function, the target selected in the frame of the shot can be continuously locked and tracked.
Small size spherical shape and non-orthogonal three-axis mechanical stability increase structure are adopted to minimize the turning radius and wind resistance. The yaw axis can rotate continuously at 360°×N.
With GCU support network, serial port and S.US control, compatible with private protocol and MAVlink protocol, convenient for secondary development.
The image stabilization accuracy can reach ±0.01° by using dual IMU complementing algorithm with IMU temperature control and inertial data fusion, and the pod can still maintain stability when the carrier maneuveres violently.
Supports upright and inverted installation, and can be quickly installed on various loading platforms.
With GCU and Dragonfly display and control software, you can display the picture on the computer in real time without docking protocol, and realize the control of the pod.
The screen supports superimposing OSD information such as latitude and longitude and height, and the photo supports writing EXIF information of shooting point coordinates.
Support ONVIF and GB/T28181 protocol, can be connected to the command platform.
14~53VDC wide voltage input.

Component introduction

Install

Remove pod port protection cover.
Insert the four positioning pins on the damping platform into the positioning holes on the mounting platform and press down the latch to secure the pod. The pod can also be secured using screws through mounting holes in the damping platform.
Plug the pod control cable into the pod control interface. Remove the interface protection cover.

⚠ When the pod is used upside down or installed on a loading platform with large vibration/impact, screws should be used to secure the pod. Quick release locks should not be used.

⚠ Do not pull or insert the cable forcibly.

⚠ Do not squeeze the cable when you fasten back the protection cover.

⚠ Cover the SD card protection cover during use or storage to prevent liquid or dust from entering.

⚠ The pod will heat up to a certain extent during operation. Please ensure that the equipment has good heat dissipation during operation.

⚠ Do not hard-connect the pod to the carrier. Ensure that the pod does not touch the carrier while in use.

Setup and firmware upgrade

⚠ Before use, ensure that the firmware of GCU and PTZ has been upgraded to the latest version; otherwise, the use may be affected.

⚠ Before setting up or upgrading the firmware, ensure that the firmware driver is installed on the PC.

⚠ Before setting, ensure that the PC is set to a fixed IP address, that the IP address is in the same network segment as the GCU and the camera, and that the IP address does not conflict with each other. The default IP address of the GCU is 192.168.144.121, and the default IP address of the camera is 192.168.144.108.

⚠ Do not power off the device during the firmware upgrade. Otherwise, the device may be damaged. After the upgrade is complete, restart the device.

Connect the computer to the ETH port on the top of the pod using the network port conversion module to power on the pod.
Run the Dragonfly display and control software to confirm that you are connected to the pod.
Open the Settings page to set the current pod.
Click "Save" after setting.
Restart the pod for the changes to take effect.

Camera Settings

Connect the GCU to the pod using the control cable, connect the PC to the ETH port of the GCU using the network port conversion module, and power on the GCU.
Open your browser (in compatibility mode), type http://192.168.144.108 in the address box. (If the camera IP address has been changed, replace the IP address in the address box with the current camera IP address.)
Enter the user name and password in the page that opens (the default user name is user and the password is 0000).
After login, follow the prompts to download and install the plug-in. After the plug-in is installed, the Web page will refresh automatically and the camera screen will be displayed. Click "Settings", the interface is as shown in the picture below.

Camera Settings - Camera properties

Graphics

Brightness/Contrast/saturation/Color suppression/Sharpness/sharpness suppression/Gamma

The picture quality parameters can be fine-tuned according to the requirements.

2D/ 3D noise reduction

Used to suppress noise, the greater the noise reduction level, the less noise, but it will reduce the clarity of the picture.

Exposure

mode

Automatic: The camera automatically adjusts the exposure according to the ambient brightness, so that the overall brightness of the image is in the normal exposure range.

Aperture priority: The aperture is fixed as the set value, and the camera automatically adjusts the electronic shutter speed and gain according to the ambient brightness to achieve the optimal overall brightness of the picture.

Shutter priority: the electronic shutter speed is fixed as the set value, and the camera automatically adjusts the aperture and gain according to the ambient brightness to achieve the optimal overall brightness of the picture.

Gain priority: The gain is fixed as the set value, and the camera automatically adjusts the aperture and electronic shutter speed according to the ambient brightness to achieve the optimal overall brightness of the picture.

Manual: Manually adjust camera aperture, shutter speed, and gain.

Exposure compensation

Set the amount of exposure compensation for the picture.

Automatic exposure recovery

When the camera is set to non-auto exposure mode, auto exposure can be resumed after the set recovery time.

- backlight

Set this option to improve the camera's adaptability to complex light sources, supporting backlight compensation, strong light suppression, and wide motion.

- White balance

The D-80Pro offers a variety of white balance modes to adapt to different scenarios.

- Zoom focusing

Digital magnification

Set whether to enable the camera digital zoom function.

Doubling speed

Set the zoom speed of the camera. The higher the value, the faster the zoom.

mode

Manual: The user triggers the focusing action manually, and the camera does not automatically focus.

Automatic: The camera will automatically trigger the focusing action when the zoom, ICR switch and other operations, or when the scene changes.

Semi-automatic: The camera will automatically trigger the focusing action during operations such as zoom and ICR switching.

Fast semi-automatic/Fast automatic: Similar to semi-automatic/autofocus trigger conditions, but faster focusing speed.

Nearest focusing distance

The camera will only focus on objects beyond the nearest focus distance, and the auto rear camera will automatically select the most appropriate closest focus distance based on the zoom multiple.

Focusing sensitivity

Set the focus smoothness or anti-interference ability, the lower the sensitivity, the smoother the focus, and the higher the focus anti-interference ability, the stronger.

Zoom tracking

Zoom tracking is turned on to make the image sharper during the zoom process, while turning it off will increase the zoom speed of the camera.

Lens initialization

Click to initialize the camera lens once, at which point the lens will perform a push and pull operation to calibrate the zoom and focus.

Transparent fog

Turn on the fog transmission function, which can make the hazy image caused by haze or water vapor dust become clearer and enhance the detail information of the image. Fog penetration intensity can be set manually or automatically.

Camera - coded Settings

video

On this page, you can set primary/secondary stream parameters for camera video, or enable/disable secondary stream.

Encoding mode: Set the video encoding mode, which supports H.264, H.264H, H.264B, H.265 and MJPEG.

Resolution: Set the video resolution, support 3840×2160, 1920×1080, 1280×1024, 1280×960 and 1280×720.

Frame rate: Set the video frame rate, which ranges from 1 to 30fps.

Stream control: Can be set to fixed stream or variable stream

🔑 Picture quality can be set only in variable stream mode and not in fixed stream mode.

🔑 In the MJPEG encoding mode, the stream control mode can only be set to a fixed stream.

Stream/Stream Upper limit: In variable stream mode, this parameter is set to the stream upper limit. In fixed stream mode, this parameter is set to the actual stream value.

I-frame interval: Set the number of P-frames between two adjacent I-frames. The range varies with the frame rate. You are advised to set it to twice the frame rate.

Watermark Settings: Select to enable the watermark function. The watermark can contain only digits, letters, underscores (_), and hyphens (-), and a maximum of 128 characters.

Video overlay

Channel heading

Set the channel title to appear in the screen, and can be dragged through the preview screen to adjust the title position.

Time heading

Set whether to display the time in the screen, you can choose whether to display the week, and you can drag through the preview screen to adjust the position.

OSD information

Set whether to display preset points, coordinates, zoom multiple and other information in the screen, and can be dragged through the preview screen to adjust the position of information.

Geographical position

The location text information displayed in the screen and its alignment can be set, and the position can be adjusted by dragging in the preview screen.

Font size

Sets the font size of the overlay information.

Picture overlay

Set whether to overlay locally uploaded pictures on the screen, and drag the yellow box in the preview screen to adjust the picture position.

🔑The overlay of geographic and road information and pictures in OSD information cannot be enabled at the same time.

Abnormal superposition

Sets whether to display exception information in the screen.

GPS coordinates

Sets whether to display latitude and longitude information in the screen.

Network Settings - General Settings

TCP/IP

Host name: Set the name of the current camera with a maximum length of 15 characters.

Mode: Set the mode for obtaining the camera IP address. In static IP mode, you need to manually set the IP address, subnet mask, and gateway. In DHCP mode, you do not need to set the IP address, subnet mask, and gateway.

Network Settings - Platform Settings

Set the camera platform parameters according to the requirements of the access platform.

⚠ Except the above Settings, keep all other Settings of the camera in factory Settings; otherwise, the pod may not work properly.

⚠ When you are done, be sure to click the "OK" button to save the Settings. And restart the pod for the configuration to take effect.

PTZ firmware upgrade

Use the pod control cable to connect the GCU to the pod, power the GCU on, and use the debug module to connect the computer to the pod upgrade interface.
Use the pod control cable to connect the GCU to the pod, power the GCU on, and use the debug module to connect the computer to the pod upgrade interface.

🔑 For some brands of dual-Type-C data cables, the computer may not recognize the debugging module, you can try to replace the data cable with a Type-A to Type-C interface.

Real-time video playback

The camera IP address 192.168.144.108 is used as an example.

Main stream (default 3840× 2160@30fps, corresponding to the fourth stream in GCU) :

rtsp://user:0000@192.168.144.108:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0

Secondary stream 1 (default 352× 240@20fps, corresponding to secondary stream in GCU) :

rtsp://user:0000@192.168.144.108:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=1

Secondary stream 2 (default 1920× 1080@30fps, corresponding to the main stream in GCU) :

rtsp://user:0000@192.168.144.108:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=2

Overall dimension

MAVLink configuration Description

ArduPilot

SERIAL1
SERIAL1_BAUD	115
SERIAL1_OPTIONS	1024
SERIAL1_PROTOCOL	2
SR1
SR1_ADSB	0Hz
SR1_EXIT_STAT	0Hz
SR1_EXTRA1	0Hz
SR1_EXTRA2	0Hz
SR1_EXTRA3	0Hz
SR1_PARAMS	0Hz
SR1_POSITION	0Hz
SR1_RAW_CTRL	0Hz
SR1_RAW_SENS	0Hz
SR1_RC_CHAN	0Hz
MNT1
MNT1_TYPE	4（Gremsy）/6（SToRM32 Mavlink）
RC1
RC1_OPTOPN	213（MOUNT1_PITCH）
RC2
RC2_OPTOPN	214（MOUNT1_YAW）
RC3
RC3_OPTOPN	163（MOUNT1_LOCK）
CAM
CAM-TRIGG_TYPE	3（Mount）

🔑MNT1_TYPE The recommended value is 4. In this case, MNT1_ROLL_MAX, MNT1_ROLL_MIN, MNT1_PITCH_MAX, MNT1_PITCH_MIN, MNT1_YAW_MAX, and MNT1_YAW_MIN are automatically set based on the data reported by the pod. When MNT1_TYPE is set to 6, you need to set the Angle limit manually.

🔑RC1 to RC3 are only example channel ids. You can define the channel ids based on actual conditions.

PX4

MAVLink
MAV_1CONFIG	TELEM2
MAV_1_MODE	Custom/Gimbal
MAV_1_RATE	115200B/s
Serial
SER_TEL2_BAUD	115200 8N1
Mount
MNT_MAIN_PITCH	AUX1
MNT_MAIN_YAW	AUX2
MNT_MODE_IN	Auto（RC and Mavlink Gimbal）
MNT_MODE_OUT	MAVLink gimbal protocol v2
Camera Setup
Trigger mode	Distance based,on command（Survey mode）
Trigger interface	MavLink（forward via MAV_CMD_IMAGE_START_CAPTURE）

🔑 MAV_1_MODE Custom is recommended

🔑 AUX1 and AUX2 are only example channel ids. You can define the channel ids based on site requirements. Further use requires corresponding mapping in RC Map.

🔑 The trigger mode is used as an example and can be modified as required.

MAVLink communication flow

After GCU receives the flight control heartbeat packet and recognizes the flight control SYSID and COMPID, the following actions are triggered:

GCU actively sends MAVLINK_MSG_ID_HEARTBEAT 0 packets at a frequency of 2Hz.
GCU requests the following packets in sequence at 1Hz

Flight control fills this data into the MAVLINK_MSG_ID_COMMAND_LONG 76 packet and sends it back until the request is complete:

MAVLINK_MSG_ID_EKF_STATUS_REPORT 193 (PX4 does not have this data packet);

MAVLINK_MSG_ID_GLOBAL_POSITION_INT 33；

MAVLINK_MSG_ID_SCALED_IMU 26；

MAVLINK_MSG_ID_SYSTEM_TIME 2；

MAVLINK_MSG_ID_RC_CHANNELS 65；

MAVLINK_MSG_ID_CAMERA_TRIGGER 112 (This packet is not available on APM).

MAVLINK_MSG_ID_AUTOPILOT_STATE_FOR_GIMBAL_DEVICE 286；

MAVLINK_MSG_ID_GIMBAL_DEVICE_SET_ATTITUDE 284 (this packet is not available in APM);

When the above data is received and the pod works normally, GCU will actively send MAVLINK_MSG_ID_GIMBAL_DEVICE_ATTITUDE_STATUS285 packets at a frequency of 100Hz.
Generally, the flight controller will actively request MAVLINK_MSG_ID_GIMBAL_DEVICE_INFORMATION 283 packets, which GCU will not send.

OneCam Gimbal Camera