In the name of science.

[Ramjam61]

So I powered up my mini and put it into a hover, in the living room. Then put my controller/phone combo' in the Microwave, in the kitchen and shut the door. I went to check on the mini, which was still hovering on the spot, with the LED flashing.
I then turned off the remote control, turned off my phone and it was still hovering in place. With both remote and phone still switched off I went to grab it from underneath and it started to descend. I moved my hand away and it stopped. So to answer the question about drone jamming, it would sit and hover until the battery died.
Unless there is a jammer that could interrogate the drones protocols, then maybe the operator could force the drone to land. Takes a bow and steps back.
The real Hero pictured below.

 

[old man mavic]

very scientific i am sure ,just make sure you dont turn the microwave oven on during the process

 

[LifesShort]

It seems to me that you should do this outdoors where you have a GPS signal. I would think the drone would RTH if it lost signal, even through jamming. The drone doesn't need to be able to communicate with the RC to RTH.

 

[old man mavic]

@Ramjam61 just out of interest,what setting did you have it on for loss of signal in settings ?

 

[Ramjam61]

It seems to me that you should do this outdoors where you have a GPS signal. I would think the drone would RTH if it lost signal, even through jamming. The drone doesn't need to be able to communicate with the RC to RTH.

Don't the jamming devices scramble the gps signal these days?. I've seen area warnings where the military were experimenting using gps blocking. I could be wrong of course but it must be easier than trying to block a frequency hopping RC unit. Just a thought. As you say it would return iff RC signal is lost and even iff gps is lost, as it constantly monitors it's position from take off, so it can fly a direct route back. I enjoyed the indoor experiment though. At least we all now know it won't go bonkers iff all fails.

 

[Ramjam61]

@Ramjam61 just out of interest,what setting did you have it on for loss of signal in settings ?

I had it set to RTH.

 

[old man mavic]

I had it set to RTH.

so what you are saying then, is even though it was set to RTH at loss of signal, it just hovered in place ,,and this action would be similar to what would happen if the GPS signal was jammed by an outside source,thats interesting so basically you would not be able to bring the drone home in such a situation ,or would you still be able to fly it home manually

 

[Ramjam61]

so what you are saying then, is even though it was set to RTH at loss of signal, it just hovered in place ,,and this action would be similar to what would happen if the GPS signal was jammed by an outside source,thats interesting so basically you would not be able to bring the drone home in such a situation ,or would you still be able to fly it home manually

I don't see any reason you couldn't manually fly it back. Having had a re think, Iff left alone I think it will hover, waiting for a gps signal, until critical battery level is reached and then land where it is.

 

[maelstrom]

I then turned off the remote control, turned off my phone and it was still hovering in place. With both remote and phone still switched off I went to grab it from underneath and it started to descend. I moved my hand away and it stopped. So to answer the question about drone jamming, it would sit and hover until the battery died.

In your experiment, you shut of all transmissions to your drone which would have normally triggered an RTH or a landing (if within 20m of the takeoff point). If it doesn't like the surface below it as it tries to land, even during an outdoors RTH, it will just sit in the hover and wait for you to intervene. Putting your hand under it probably gave it a brighter surface that it decided it could land on. I would try the experiment again but over the wooden floor or a brighter, textured surface rather than the black mat.

 

[Ramjam61]

In your experiment, you shut of all transmissions to your drone which would have normally triggered an RTH or a landing (if within 20m of the takeoff point). If it doesn't like the surface below it as it tries to land, even during an outdoors RTH, it will just sit in the hover and wait for you to intervene. Putting your hand under it probably gave it a brighter surface that it decided it could land on. I would try the experiment again but over the wooden floor or a brighter, textured surface rather than the black mat.

That makes perfect sense, thinking about it.

 

[Ramjam61]

I don't see any reason you couldn't manually fly it back. Having had a re think, Iff left alone I think it will hover, waiting for a gps signal, until critical battery level is reached and then land where it is.

.Just tried it over my helimatt, bright orange side. With no gps and controller switched off. It hovered without any attempt to land. When I switched controller back on, that started beeping and drone continued to hover. I switched the phone back on and then got the drone landing message. A few seconds later it landed.

 

[Meta4]

.Just tried it over my helimatt, bright orange side. With no gps and controller switched off. It hovered without any attempt to land. When I switched controller back on, that started beeping and drone continued to hover. I switched the phone back on and then got the drone landing message. A few seconds later it landed.

Despite suggesting a scientific intent, there are some basic points missing.
It seems that you assumed GPS reception indoors would be zero but you haven't shown whether it actually was.
Perhaps you had no GPS signal indoors and perhaps not.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Surely the mini can not rth if it has no gps reception. If memory serves me correctly it's one of the warnings seen EVERY time I boot it indoors etc

 

[Meta4]

Surely the mini can not rth if it has no gps reception.

There shouldn't be any need to ask.
Of course the Mini cannot navigate to anywhere without GPS.

 

[Ramjam61]

There shouldn't be any need to ask.
Of course the Mini cannot navigate to anywhere without GPS.

It had no gps shown on the top right icon. I recieved the no gps fly with caution and had to unlock it to take off.
I did wonder iff it could use it's internal compass and the fact it constantly plots it's position to the take off point. It does seem that it would just hover in place.
The title suggests otherwise but it's just a bit of fun and thought provoking.

 

[Ramjam61]

Another experiment for file 13. Even with 8 layers of Baco foil it still picked up 9 Satellites. Fun while it lasted. It got a bit angry whilst I was trying to get it's jacket on.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

There shouldn't be any need to ask.
Of course the Mini cannot navigate to anywhere without GPS.

I wasn't asking, it was a statement, just my perhaps odd way of phrasing it

 

[davefabik]

I seem to remember someone about a year ago describing flying near a docked Navy ship. When they tried the same flight a few minutes later, they had a loss of control/fly-away incident. If memory serves, they weren't able to control their drone and weren't able to find it again either.

I would guess that approaching a protected military target with a drone, the result would not be a "nice and tidy" hover-in-place or a RTH.

 

[Trackerputnam]

My concern would be, what was the RTH altitude? If it had no gps to see where it was, and stayed in a hover, what happens if it suddenly got signal? Gps signal can and often does come through intermittently inside at my house. Anyway I wonder if it would have tried to rise up and go back to the last place it knew where it had been?

 

[GB1Yorkshire1]

If they were running radar, ..........bad news for unshielded electronics.