Active Track crash while MTB, what happened?

[Mando022]

Hello Everyone,

First time pilot and first post on Mavic Pilots Forum.

This morning I was using Active Track - Parallel Mode when the my Mavic Air 2 all the sudden came right at me, right above my head, and crashed into the mountain side. I had been riding for about 5 minutes before that with no problems (minus it losing me once bc the sun came over the ridge and its AZ so very bright.) but this came out of the blue and didnt make much sense as to what/why it happened.

I had the drone positioned out to the open side of the mountain on my left with plenty of clearance from and cactus or shrubs. The flight log says "space to narrow" when it crashed but it was in a wide open spot.

Any advice and/or explanation of what happened would be appreciated. Flight log and video included.

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Thanks!

 

[slup]

Hi there & welcome to the forum !

Unfortunately automated flight modes is like "closed boxes" log wise ... it's all software that have control over your craft, nothing that the logs record reveals what the software was doing.

Have seen this a couple times already & usually with an Air 2 involved ... only advice is to see to that your app & craft firmware is up to date.

 

[MARK (LI)]

Can't offer any explanation...just hope the drone is ok

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Looks like a reasonably soft landing, hopefully all ok ?
Was a strange loss of control / tracking, and ever stranger hovering, touch down, looked like it was trying to do 'something' up to the end, rather than a total loss of control.

Goes to show even using other flight modes there should always be the pilot ready to take over.
Many here doing same have bought mounts for the bike handle bars, but you'd need to be quick to get control in such situations tracking.

 

[icecoldgin]

From experience, doing parallel active track is tricky as the MA2 has a tendency to shift side to side and may not avoid obstacles, especially those with different heights/elevation. I noticed that with parallel active track, the MA2 cannot easily adjust its preset "safe" active track altitude vis-a-vis the obstacles.

I did a follow me active track inside a village with trees, branches over the streets, and the "evil" overhanging wires all around and it came out okay. The MA2 was able to dodge all these obstacles.

 

[hiflyer201]

Looks like it was moving sideways when it crashed. There is no obstacle avoidance in that situation and that's always going to be a problem with parallel tracking. It does a pretty good job as long as you stay in a straight line but it doesn't do well with turns in unlevel terrain.

 

[Baron von Richthofen]

Looks like your Air2 ‘decided’ to swap sides, but without side sensors was unable to detect the hillside as it moved into position. When using active track it’s usually best to have plenty of open space on both sides.

 

[Mando022]

Looks like a reasonably soft landing, hopefully all ok ?
Was a strange loss of control / tracking, and ever stranger hovering, touch down, looked like it was trying to do 'something' up to the end, rather than a total loss of control.

Goes to show even using other flight modes there should always be the pilot ready to take over.
Many here doing same have bought mounts for the bike handle bars, but you'd need to be quick to get control in such situations tracking.

Thanks for commenting. Do you find the handlebar mount holds onto the controller sufficiently over bumpy/rocky terrain?

 

[Mando022]

Looks like your Air2 ‘decided’ to swap sides, but without side sensors was unable to detect the hillside as it moved into position. When using active track it’s usually best to have plenty of open space on both sides.

Thanks for the info. I didn’t realize it doesn’t have any side sensors.

 

[Mando022]

Thanks for commenting. Do you find the handlebar mount holds onto the controller sufficiently over bumpy/rocky terrain?

And yes the drone it okay. Only damage was a damaged prop, so easy fix.

 

[AZDave]

It looks to me that when you made that turn to the right the drone got too far away from you and tried to correct, but it overshot a bit since you were then slightly turning back to the left and it lost the visual lock on you. At that point the drone really didn't know what to do anymore. You can't expect the drone to respond that quickly to your changes of speed and position when it is that close to you. It's not locking on to you physically ... it's locking on to you visually and especially with the wide angle lens on the drone there will be some ranging error.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Do you find the handlebar mount holds onto the controller sufficiently over bumpy/rocky terrain?

I simply wouldn't ride and drone, but have read many threads on here (and likely other forums) about making / sourcing them.
Check some of this forum results for a search for > bike handlebars controller

Search results for query: bike controller handlebars

I guess if the controller is right there in front of you and you see a track losing control like that, you only really have to know where the pause button is to halt the erratic movement fast.
The drone should just hover then.

Test this out when you are trialing any sort of mount, heck even before you make or purchase one.