Waypoint Mission… Catch 22

[RadioFlyerMan]

A setting on the M2P is to continue the mission in the event signal is lost. An option for the mission is to “hover” at the end of the mission in lieu of RTH or go to first point. Does anyone else see a problem with that?

With too many trees attenuating the signal, the results was this pilot, with controller in hand, running down the road towards the known location to regain signal. Success, but don’t you ever do that again! Think through your settings.

 

[GFields]

Are you referring to the Litchi app?

 

[AMann]

A setting on the M2P is to continue the mission in the event signal is lost. An option for the mission is to “hover” at the end of the mission in lieu of RTH or go to first point. Does anyone else see a problem with that?

With too many trees attenuating the signal, the results was this pilot, with controller in hand, running down the road towards the known location to regain signal. Success, but don’t you ever do that again! Think through your settings.

Another setting to look out for is using RTH vs RTC (return to controller) at low battery if you are having the drone follow you while you are moving away from the takeoff point or in a moving vehicle or boat.

We had a struggle to get it to follow us or even land next to us when it didn’t have close to enough battery power to return to the original home takeoff point a few miles away from where we started driving. We finally snatched it while it was hovering. Luckily, had it returned and landed back at the original home point, it was flying over land the entire time. Unfortunately, several people have lost drones this way when theirs flew back and landed in water where their boat used to be when they took off. I think a lot of people believe their drone malfunctioned and did a “fly away” when they encountered this same situation.

(This was a legal flying session as I was the driver and my brother was piloting and could see the drone the entire time- we were on a very remote dirt road out in the desert with nobody around).

 

[mavic3usa]

Usually if you lose signal and the drone comes to a stop, it should only take a few feet for you to move and regain the signal....it's not like you need to meet up with the drone while it is hovering. This would be the setting to hover if you lose your signal but if you rather continue to mission and then hover at the end of the mission, hopefully the end of the mission is near your home point or at least back within signal coverage. I can think of a mission that is a big circle where the second half of the circle is completed behind a building and blocked coverage. When I create missions, I always set the end point right next to where I want the drone to land so I don't need to bring the drone home myself after the mission completes. Ultimately it should be ok to hover anywhere as long as the drone can land at that spot when the battery depletes so don't hover over water.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

Are you referring to the Litchi app?

No, Go4.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

Usually if you lose signal and the drone comes to a stop, it should only take a few feet for you to move and regain the signal....it's not like you need to meet up with the drone while it is hovering. This would be the setting to hover if you lose your signal but if you rather continue to mission and then hover at the end of the mission, hopefully the end of the mission is near your home point or at least back within signal coverage. I can think of a mission that is a big circle where the second half of the circle is completed behind a building and blocked coverage. When I create missions, I always set the end point right next to where I want the drone to land so I don't need to bring the drone home myself after the mission completes. Ultimately it should be ok to hover anywhere as long as the drone can land at that spot when the battery depletes so don't hover over water.

I usually have my missions naturally end near the home point. When that happens, I like to take control instead of landing. Thus I usually specify Hover. For the purpose of a movie I produced, I flew this mission about 10 times while standing only a hundred feet away. For this flight, I got lazy and flew it from my back yard, thinking if I did lose signal, it would just return. I expected a lost signal RTH would override everything. It didn't. I lost contact for almost 4 minutes. It's not that far away, and when I couldn't hear anything and didn't see it climb, I finally figured out what was going on.

Here's the flight path with the fly state events... and there's the road I ran down to get a connection.
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[GFields]

An option for the mission is to “hover”

It is an option that is often used for those who launch from a boat. They can go to the drone instead of it returning to its original take-off point. Others have indicated its use if flying indoors.

 

[tribar]

A setting on the M2P is to continue the mission in the event signal is lost. An option for the mission is to “hover” at the end of the mission in lieu of RTH or go to first point. Does anyone else see a problem with that?

With too many trees attenuating the signal, the results was this pilot, with controller in hand, running down the road towards the known location to regain signal. Success, but don’t you ever do that again! Think through your settings.

Eventually Low Battery RTH would have kicked in.