Landing drones on a rocking boat deck

[Dronerock]

When the boat is out on the ocean and there are various motions of the deck when the boat has stoped ,I would like to hear others opinions as to their experiences with landing when the descending sensors detect the deck movement.
Am I the only one that has problems landing on boat decks and have others got any suggestions apart from hand catching the drone. Hand catching is also awkward as trying to coordinate your body going up and down also affects the drones sensors causing random drone movements.
I have ,when trying to land a couple of times my AIR2S , I experienced when hovering the drone over the area it was going to land on it seems it detects the deck movement and the sensors kick in and it ascends again. I have tried landing a couple of times on a fairly large area of deck with the normal landing control but the drone just won’t land normally., I presume the landing sensor detects the up, down and side movements of the landing surface as the boat moves in the ocean. I have found the only way to get it down is the stressful crash technique of descending to start the landing movement with the left stick and when the drone is just about to move up again, kill the motors to drop it on the deck. Not the most smoothest of landings.

 

[rwilliam99]

When the boat is out on the ocean and there are various motions of the deck when the boat has stoped ,I would like to hear others opinions as to their experiences with landing when the descending sensors detect the deck movement.
Am I the only one that has problems landing on boat decks and have others got any suggestions apart from hand catching the drone. Hand catching is also awkward as trying to coordinate your body going up and down also affects the drones sensors causing random drone movements.
I have ,when trying to land a couple of times my AIR2S , I experienced when hovering the drone over the area it was going to land on it seems it detects the deck movement and the sensors kick in and it ascends again. I have tried landing a couple of times on a fairly large area of deck with the normal landing control but the drone just won’t land normally., I presume the landing sensor detects the up, down and side movements of the landing surface as the boat moves in the ocean. I have found the only way to get it down is the stressful crash technique of descending to start the landing movement with the left stick and when the drone is just about to move up again, kill the motors to drop it on the deck. Not the most smoothest of landings.

That would seem to be a perfect candidate for a hand catch.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Generally the recommendation seems to be a hand catch and launch, probably from the stern and all under manual control, NOT automated.
Launch from up front and the drone will probably hover 'towards' the rear of the boat hitting Lord knows what and going for a swim.
If you are dubious practise stood on land and when comfortable with that move to catching from a slow moving object.

There are add on handles for some drones but remember they add air resistance. Dont forget.on a boat the boat probably moves away from the home point so the home pointwill need updating fairly regularily.

 

[MA2 317]

As stated above, practice hand land / launch on solid ground and work your way up to the floating dock before getting in a boat.

If all else fails, take a fishing net and spare props to catch it in the air as a last resort.

Be mindful of the gimbal if this scenario happens.

Good luck.

 

[Dronecation]

When the boat is out on the ocean and there are various motions of the deck when the boat has stoped ,I would like to hear others opinions as to their experiences with landing when the descending sensors detect the deck movement.
Am I the only one that has problems landing on boat decks and have others got any suggestions apart from hand catching the drone. Hand catching is also awkward as trying to coordinate your body going up and down also affects the drones sensors causing random drone movements.
I have ,when trying to land a couple of times my AIR2S , I experienced when hovering the drone over the area it was going to land on it seems it detects the deck movement and the sensors kick in and it ascends again. I have tried landing a couple of times on a fairly large area of deck with the normal landing control but the drone just won’t land normally., I presume the landing sensor detects the up, down and side movements of the landing surface as the boat moves in the ocean. I have found the only way to get it down is the stressful crash technique of descending to start the landing movement with the left stick and when the drone is just about to move up again, kill the motors to drop it on the deck. Not the most smoothest of landings.

If you don't want to catch by hand, buy/make yourself a pizza paddle for the drone to land onto...
Paint some lines on it for the sensor to read easily.

 

[Walleye Hunter]

If you switch it to sport mode, it will disable the sensors. You might also be able to disable them in your settings.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Sports mode disables the horizontal sensors and maybe any upward looking sensors but, as far as I know, it does not disable the landing/VPS/downward-looking sensors.

 

[Meta4]

If you switch it to sport mode, it will disable the sensors. You might also be able to disable them in your settings.

Using Sport Mode when fine speed control is needed is just asking for trouble.

 

[Meta4]

When the boat is out on the ocean and there are various motions of the deck when the boat has stoped ,I would like to hear others opinions as to their experiences with landing when the descending sensors detect the deck movement.
Am I the only one that has problems landing on boat decks and have others got any suggestions apart from hand catching the drone. Hand catching is also awkward as trying to coordinate your body going up and down also affects the drones sensors causing random drone movements.
I have ,when trying to land a couple of times my AIR2S , I experienced when hovering the drone over the area it was going to land on it seems it detects the deck movement and the sensors kick in and it ascends again. I have tried landing a couple of times on a fairly large area of deck with the normal landing control but the drone just won’t land normally., I presume the landing sensor detects the up, down and side movements of the landing surface as the boat moves in the ocean. I have found the only way to get it down is the stressful crash technique of descending to start the landing movement with the left stick and when the drone is just about to move up again, kill the motors to drop it on the deck. Not the most smoothest of landings.

The problem is that DJI won't allow the downward facing sensors to be turned off and landing protection will always be operating.
Landing on a boat is not going to work well and hand catching is what you have to do to solve the problem.

 

[Walleye Hunter]

Sports mode disables the horizontal sensors and maybe any upward looking sensors but as far as I Know it does not disable the landing/VPS/downward-looking sensors.

<shrug> I dunno. I had to switch to sport mode to get mine to land with my experimental floats on it.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

<shrug> I dunno. I had to switch to sport mode to get mine to land with my experimental floats on it.

Simple experiment. Hover the drone in front of you, switch to sports mode and put your have under the drone so that it is under the VPS sensors, what happens?

 

[Walleye Hunter]

Simple experiment. Hover the drone in front of you, switch to sports mode and put your have under the drone so that it is under the VPS sensors, what happens?

I'll give that a try but in normal, it won't descend with that raft attached to it but it does in sport mode. I'll also see what it does with obstacle avoidance off.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I'd remove the raft, you can always cable tie it back on.

 

[Meta4]

I'll give that a try but in normal, it won't descend with that raft attached to it but it does in sport mode. I'll also see what it does with obstacle avoidance off.

Have you tried flying with that strapped to the drone?
It looks like it would seriously handicap the drone's ability to move through the air as well as cause problems descending.

 

[Cafguy]

Nice little raft setup! I am brave enough to fly over water but I am not to the point of putting my Air2s directly on the water lol

 

[Walleye Hunter]

Have you tried flying with that strapped to the drone?
It looks like it would seriously handicap the drone's ability to move through the air as well as cause problems descending.

LOL Yeah, it flies pretty good. Those beer cans are pretty near weightless. I have not flown it for a full battery yet to see what it does to it's flight time. It still goes full speed and performs about the same.

 

[Walleye Hunter]

Nice little raft setup! I am brave enough to fly over water but I am not to the point of putting my Air2s directly on the water lol

It's more for a rescue operation than anything. We're going fishing in the Inner Passage this summer and my buddy's taking his drone along and we don't want to lose the drone to Poseidon.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Try getting it as close as you can then use the CSC to stop the motors. It'll drop on the deck, and if it's a few feet and you have something nice and soft for it to fall on, it should be fine.

This is what the emergency motor stop CSC is for. Among other things.

 

[Meta4]

LOL Yeah, it flies pretty good. Those beer cans are pretty near weightless. I have not flown it for a full battery yet to see what it does to it's flight time. It still goes full speed and performs about the same.

I'd be much more concerned about how much it increases the cross-sectional area that it exposes to the wind and how much that reduces the drone's speed and acts like a sail to catch the wind.
Blocking the VPS sensors is also a concern, but it would be interesting to see the data to show if/how switching to Sport Mode works to allow descent.
If you want to find out more, take it out for a short flight, do a couple of straight runs at maximum speed and then bring it back to land from 30-40 feet up.

Then post the data.
Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
That will give you a detailed report of the flight.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.
Or .. just post the txt file here.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Try getting it as close as you can then use the CSC to stop the motors. It'll drop on the deck, and if it's a few feet and you have something nice and soft for it to fall on, it should be fine.

This is what the emergency motor stop CSC is for. Among other things.

Would you care to demonstrate that with an Air 2s and video & post the experiment?
The CSC commands full reverse and full sideways movement until the motors stop.
Even if the "Emergency motor stop" option is set to "Anytime", or whatever the option name is, it takes around 1.5-1.7 seconds before the motors will stop and an Air 2S would move a fair bit in that time and be moving quite quickly when the motors do stop. If the "Emergency motor stop" option is left at the default then the motors will not stop until the drone has landed........somewhere.
If the drone were very low then the drone will still be moving and a prop strike may result.

I know it is not an Air 2S but