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- Feb 2, 2017
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- 42
So, I turned on Obstacle Avoidance for the first time since my first flight. I did so because I wanted the Mav to watch itself while following us around in the park in active track mode. Just moments before, it was hovering like a champ in 20mph winds. After turning OA on and lifting off, the Mav immediately started to drift away uncontrollably and almost smacked into a concrete wall.
Why did it do this? Because Obstacle Avoidance is stupid. It is! Instead of limiting the Mav's forward ground speed to 15mph, which it needs to do for the front sensors to process and for the Mav to react fast enough to avoid obstacles, it limits the thrust that the props will produce to push the Mav in that direction. A forward movement speed limit of course should not affect its ability to maintain a stable hover in the wind. But it does.
So I always turn off OA as a safety precaution. But I'm here to deliver another warning I just realized is necessary. Even after turning off OA, Smart RTH is still enabled. This is a toggle in advance settings which turns on OA in the event of RTH (either the user pressed the RTH button or the drone disconnected from RC and RTH was the default action). This means if it's windy outside and your RC gets disconnected, you may never see your drone again.
Needless to say, I've disabled both OA and Smart RTH until DJI address this with a firmware update.
Sent from my XT1650 using MavicPilots mobile app
Why did it do this? Because Obstacle Avoidance is stupid. It is! Instead of limiting the Mav's forward ground speed to 15mph, which it needs to do for the front sensors to process and for the Mav to react fast enough to avoid obstacles, it limits the thrust that the props will produce to push the Mav in that direction. A forward movement speed limit of course should not affect its ability to maintain a stable hover in the wind. But it does.
So I always turn off OA as a safety precaution. But I'm here to deliver another warning I just realized is necessary. Even after turning off OA, Smart RTH is still enabled. This is a toggle in advance settings which turns on OA in the event of RTH (either the user pressed the RTH button or the drone disconnected from RC and RTH was the default action). This means if it's windy outside and your RC gets disconnected, you may never see your drone again.
Needless to say, I've disabled both OA and Smart RTH until DJI address this with a firmware update.
Sent from my XT1650 using MavicPilots mobile app