Edge of Authorized Zone

[Rchawks]

Sat I wanted to take some pics of a building that will be torn down soon and I wanted to get close enough to take pictures of the art on the windows when I got a warning by the gal on my rc informing me I was at the edge of a Authorize Zone, the first time I've ever heard this. My question is if I had entered this zone would it take control away from me and RTH? Here's a pic or two, I was hoping for a better shot, but this will do.

 

[Big Bro]

I've had the same warning telling me if I entered it could result in a forced RTH. I did not launch and went to Geo Zone Map - Fly Safe - DJI and found that the restricted area was about a half mile away from my location. Launched and stayed away from this area and had no problems, but it best to be aware of a possible RTH and make sure you know what behavoir to expect if a forced RTH happens.

 

[Rchawks]

Yeah, I got it twiced and kept my distance from the line or at least where I thought it was. My setting for rth would have made it back home with no problem for the area conditions. I found out recently that when you set your max distance and you cross that point even slightly it takes you back home with no prompt.

 

[Big Bro]

Yeah, I got it twiced and kept my distance from the line or at least where I thought it was. My setting for rth would have made it back home with no problem for the area conditions. I found out recently that when you set your max distance and you cross that point even slightly it takes you back home with no prompt.

Hey, that's good to know!

 

[akdrone]

I have entered such a zone and been able to fly out but one time I was very near but not actually within the zone and my Mav3 froze up. It would not return to home or allow me to give any input. Finally but trying to go down with the stick held steady down it slowly went down and then I struggled to get it to travel 100 feet and I got it to eventually return. I am no very wary of coming even close and if I hear that warning I stop and turn tail immediately. My experience has not been consistent but once bitten twice shy.

 

[Rchawks]

I have entered such a zone and been able to fly out but one time I was very near but not actually within the zone and my Mav3 froze up. It would not return to home or allow me to give any input. Finally but trying to go down with the stick held steady down it slowly went down and then I struggled to get it to travel 100 feet and I got it to eventually return. I am no very wary of coming even close and if I hear that warning I stop and turn tail immediately. My experience has not been consistent but once bitten twice shy.

That possibility was what I feared about entering such a area that I might have problems controlling or returning. Thanks!

 

[FletcherAero]

So far I have not had any issues, I fly very near and slightly into an enhanced warning zone all the time. I check the box stating that I will follow the rules and everything has gone smoothly. Not sure if this is what you are referencing or not. On the other hand I have had to get approval to fly in other zones. These more restricted zones do have an effect on aircraft function, however once proper approval is granted I have had no issues. Hope that helps

 

[JimSteadman]

I have entered such a zone and been able to fly out but one time I was very near but not actually within the zone and my Mav3 froze up. It would not return to home or allow me to give any input. Finally but trying to go down with the stick held steady down it slowly went down and then I struggled to get it to travel 100 feet and I got it to eventually return. I am no very wary of coming even close and if I hear that warning I stop and turn tail immediately. My experience has not been consistent but once bitten twice shy.

I had the same experience. Not pleasant, but got it back down.

 

[Rchawks]

So far I have not had any issues, I fly very near and slightly into an enhanced warning zone all the time. I check the box stating that I will follow the rules and everything has gone smoothly. Not sure if this is what you are referencing or not. On the other hand I have had to get approval to fly in other zones. These more restricted zones do have an effect on aircraft function, however once proper approval is granted I have had no issues. Hope that helps

There are other areas where I fly where I’ve gotten warnings about flying near a prison and checked the box as you stated with no further warnings while flying. I have yet to go thru the FAA system of authorization to fly not being close to a restricted area.

 

[DSRT_VLTR]

I was flying along the lower Salt River in AZ when I got that warning. I flew back & later checked Google Earth & discovered I was in the path of a private runway a few miles away.

 

[Rchawks]

There are other areas where I fly where I’ve gotten warnings about flying near a prison and checked the box as you stated with no further warnings while flying. I have yet to go thru the FAA system of authorization to fly not being close to a restricted area.

 

[Rchawks]

Theres a cool park near there, well couple of miles away.

 

[Zbip57]

Wow. There is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

DJI's system have a built-in GEO Zone feature which, in increasing order of severity, will merely warn you when trying to fly in some areas (Warning Zone), or require you to self-authorize to indicate you accept full responsibility (Enhanced Warning Zone), or self-authorize when logged with your verified DJI account (Authorization Zone), or may limit the height at which you can fly (Altitude Zone), or require you to contact DJI directly with documented proof that you actually are authorized to fly (Restricted Zone).

The least restrictive is the Warning Zone, requiring no further action of the user. You've been Warned, proceed at your own risk.

The most restrictive is the Restricted Zone. Your drone cannot take off within such a zone, and will be prevented at the boundary from crossing into such a zone. If you somehow managed to get your drone flying inside such a zone and it gets a good enough GPS signal to realize it's inside the zone, the drone will auto-land.

I've had the same warning telling me if I entered it could result in a forced RTH.

GEO zones will never trigger an automatic Return-to-Home. The warning you see is to inform you that you are taking off near a geofenced zone which may result in interference with an automated RTH, possibly preventing your drone from returning home.

For example, if you fly outside the perimeter of a GEO zone around to the far side of that zone and then, for whatever reason, lose your control signal, the drone will try to fly a straight path Home. If it encounters an unauthorized GEO zone along the way, the drone will stop as though it hit an invisible wall and be prevented from entering that zone. Unless you can recover your control signal and safely steer the drone around the GEO zone, it'll just sit there until the battery runs out forcing an auto-landing wherever it's currently at.

You can (SHOULD) always study your chosen flight area to identify possible conflicts using the online DJI GEO Zone Map, or simply bring up the map display in your Fly App screen which shows the same thing!

It's also very important to note that DJI's GEO zones frequently do not correlate accurately to actual legal FAA restrictions. Just because DJI allows you to fly in certain areas doesn't necessarily mean it's legal to fly there. In other cases, the FAA might say it's perfectly legal to fly here, but DJI's system will step in and prevent your drone from taking off, or you can find your drone suddenly bumping into a mysterious invisible wall.

Always check the GEO Zones in your area before flying.

 

[Rchawks]

Thank you for the information

 

[Big Bro]

Wow. There is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

DJI's system have a built-in GEO Zone feature which, in increasing order of severity, will merely warn you when trying to fly in some areas (Warning Zone), or require you to self-authorize to indicate you accept full responsibility (Enhanced Warning Zone), or self-authorize when logged with your verified DJI account (Authorization Zone), or may limit the height at which you can fly (Altitude Zone), or require you to contact DJI directly with documented proof that you actually are authorized to fly (Restricted Zone).

The least restrictive is the Warning Zone, requiring no further action of the user. You've been Warned, proceed at your own risk.

The most restrictive is the Restricted Zone. Your drone cannot take off within such a zone, and will be prevented at the boundary from crossing into such a zone. If you somehow managed to get your drone flying inside such a zone and it gets a good enough GPS signal to realize it's inside the zone, the drone will auto-land.



GEO zones will never trigger an automatic Return-to-Home. The warning you see is to inform you that you are taking off near a geofenced zone which may result in interference with an automated RTH, possibly preventing your drone from returning home.

For example, if you fly outside the perimeter of a GEO zone around to the far side of that zone and then, for whatever reason, lose your control signal, the drone will try to fly a straight path Home. If it encounters an unauthorized GEO zone along the way, the drone will stop as though it hit an invisible wall and be prevented from entering that zone. Unless you can recover your control signal and safely steer the drone around the GEO zone, it'll just sit there until the battery runs out forcing an auto-landing wherever it's currently at.

You can (SHOULD) always study your chosen flight area to identify possible conflicts using the online DJI GEO Zone Map, or simply bring up the map display in your Fly App screen which shows the same thing!

It's also very important to note that DJI's GEO zones frequently do not correlate accurately to actual legal FAA restrictions. Just because DJI allows you to fly in certain areas doesn't necessarily mean it's legal to fly there. In other cases, the FAA might say it's perfectly legal to fly here, but DJI's system will step in and prevent your drone from taking off, or you can find your drone suddenly bumping into a mysterious invisible wall.

Always check the GEO Zones in your area before flying.

This is very good info! I was pretty sure the warning I got said "forced RTH", but I could have been wrong, so I'll be heading back to that spot to verify. With the latest firmware update I've been getting some new and unusual warnings. A couple of days ago I got a warning that I could not launch due to a RID Error. Any idea what that was about. I rebooted and was able to take off, but I'd like to know what I did to trigger that?

 

[Zbip57]

I found out recently that when you set your max distance and you cross that point even slightly it takes you back home with no prompt.

That's also incorrect.

The user can configure max distance and max height settings via the app. This is useful if, for instance, you want to let your kids fly your drone in their school's football field, but you want to ensure the drone cannot escape the boundaries of the school property or fly higher than a certain height.

The max distance sets a geofence in a cylinder at the desired radius centred around the recorded Home Position. So if you're taking off from centre field on the football field, and set max distance to 25 yards, the drone will stop when reaching the sidelines of the field or halfway to either goalpost.

Similarly, setting a max height will limit how high the drone can climb measured relative to its takeoff position, i.e. that's the top cap on your cylinder.

Try it out for yourself. The drone will happily fly anywhere within the cylinder restriction. If you try to send it out further or higher, it'll hit an invisible wall and refuse to go any further.

But it does not trigger an unwanted RTH.

When this max distance and max height geofence idea was first introduced with firmware v4.00 for the original DJI Phantom-1, it didn't work. There was a bug. When the Phantom was flown out far enough to encounter the invisible wall, it just stuck there and couldn't be brought back without manually triggering a RTH. I made a video 9 years ago demonstrating that behaviour and sent it to DJI.

DJI surprisingly replied to me and sent me a pre-release version of firmware v4.02 for me to test. Here's the video of that test, showing how it now behaved correctly.

 

[Rchawks]

Thank you again for correcting me. But I did have it RTH on me without being done by me, I thought it was done because of distance setting, must have lost connection momentarily because this was not my imagination, it happened. My apologies for the misinformation I might have caused.

 

[Zbip57]

Try it out for yourself. The drone will happily fly anywhere within the cylinder restriction. If you try to send it out further or higher, it'll hit an invisible wall and refuse to go any further.

That said, I strongly advise you to do your own tests and experiments under safe and controlled conditions to familiarize yourself with all the many cool features with which your drone is equipped.

I once deliberately tried to start up my Phantom in the parking lot of an airport to confirm the drone would be reliably prevented from taking off within that Red Restricted GEO Zone. To ensure I wouldn't be immediately arrested by any RCMP officers who might have spotted me, I didn't fit any propeller blades to the motors. That way I could demonstrate that I truly wasn't trying to actually fly the thing there.

I typically set the max height restriction to 300ft, as I rarely if ever have a need to fly higher than that, and it shows that I've at least made an effort to avoid ever blowing the 400ft legal restriction.

And max distance for me is usually 300m (~1000ft) because I can't pretend to actually see my Mini at distances greater than that, but it's more for safety. There is a ridge line that separates our lake from the next at approximately that range. A float plane sometimes operates out of that next lake. If anything were ever to go completely wrong and I lose sight of my drone, it would be good to know that it won't fly beyond that ridge line.

There are situations where setting a max distance restriction can cause you problems. It should be part of your pre-flight check list to always confirm your max height, max distance, and RTH height settings are configured to what you had intended.

Let's say you've left your max distance set like mine to 300m. Then you decide to hitch a ride in your friend's boat and chase it across the lake with your drone. If the boat travels further than 300m from the Home point where you launched from, the drone will suddenly hit an invisible wall and STOP when it's travelled out 300m. The drone will follow you no further than that. Unless you can turn the boat around, the drone will stay there until a low battery causes it to turn around and head back the Home point. [Don't panic. The fix is to reset the Home Point to the boat's current location, or to increase the Max Distance setting.]

 

[Zbip57]

I was pretty sure the warning I got said "forced RTH", but I could have been wrong, so I'll be heading back to that spot to verify.

I did have it RTH on me without being done by me, ...

I run a screen recorder on my phone to record what's being displayed on my Fly App screen. That way I can later play back and review the exact circumstances and wording of any warning messages whenever something unexpected happens during a flight.

Failing that, even better is to upload your flight log txt file to:
www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/upload/

Read the instructions shown on the page on how to find and upload your log file. Post the link here on the forum to the resultant details, and someone will surely be able to tell you exactly what happened and why.

 

[Zbip57]

A couple of days ago I got a warning that I could not launch due to a RID Error. Any idea what that was about.

I thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and any other deity of your preference, that we here in Canada are not [yet] plagued with the utter nonsense of your Remote ID requirements.

So I'm only guessing here, but I think one of the requirements is that RID needs to be able to log the GPS coordinates of your takeoff location and/or the operator's location. Maybe you tried to take off before a good GPS fix has been established, and thus RID prevented the launch? I dunno.