Litchi Waypoint Question - Will the drone RTH if contact is lost?

[BikerGeek]

I've been wanting to try the Litchi Waypoint feature but was curious about loss of contact. I had a Parrott Bebop 2 for a while and using Flight Plan, the equivalent feature, if signal was lost, the Bebop would continue the mission to the end without returning home. Is this the same with Litchi? Or will it RTH if signal is lost?

 

[Mossiback]

Litchi will try to continue the mission if signal is lost. I set the last waypoint to land at my takeoff position for that eventuality and watch it the whole way with my finger on the cancel button. Keep in mind that if it hits a strong headwind or some unknown obstacle and you can't see it to make a correction, it will be gone. Kind of like a sub in WW2 that left on it's mission but did not return; no radio, no debris, just a mystery and broken hearts.

 

[BikerGeek]

Does making a correction cancel the waypoint mission?

 

[ICHOTT]

Does making a correction cancel the waypoint mission?

Set up a couple of short close simple wp mission with last wp near home and also RTH at mission end and experiment
Eg switch off controller after mission start and see what happens and also make small correction and see what happens

Let us know ;-)

 

[Mossiback]

Does making a correction cancel the waypoint mission?

Adding throttle (right stick forward) will speed up the mission without cancelling it.

 

[Pepino Grande]

I did some testing with this on my Phantom3 standard to see what would happen with lost contact. I planned a Litchi waypoint mission I knew would be beyond the reception range. With the phantom at 2000 feet away, way out over a forest area where I could not see it, I lost contact and was out of contact for about 3 and 1/2 minutes. I re-aquired contact when it got within 2400 feet, I set the mission parameters to RTH after the last waypoint. I made the last waypoint only about 200 feet away to be on the safe side. All was well the Phantom completed the entire mission without me touching the screen or controls. Flew the same mission with my Mavic after and it followed the same mission without any problems.

 

[Marco Cantieni]

Adding throttle (right stick forward) will speed up the mission without cancelling it.

And right stick backward slows it down and holding it down let the bird fly the mission backwards. I find this very useful for re-doing moves that have been not right in the first place

 

[Jon1976]

I am new to flying and tried a waypoint mission yesterday. I have done a few test waypoint missions not going very far and each time worked perfectly and landed right on target. Yesterday I flew a longer waypoint mission and I did push the stick forward trying to speed it up. Towards the end of the mission I started getting some warning beeps, not sure what it was, still had 40% battery and within range, but I had lost visual sight of it and decided to push the RTH button on the controller. Wanted to try it anyway, It came back and landed with no problems. Loving the LItchi app. I even bought a cheap pair of VR goggles from walmart ($5.00) and they worked wonderful with the app.

 

[cyrocasabona]

If you plan a mission beyond battery capacity will the drone fly up to fall or will it meet the safe limit to return?

 

[joeruby]

Buy the Litchi App and test it. It is worth ten times the price to me. I have over 600 air miles on my P3P with most of those miles using Litchi, and a large percentage of those miles as Litchi missions. I started using Litchi because DJI Go didn't have waypoints. Litchi Mission Hub and Litchi Virtual Mission can now calculate and program the required altitude at each waypoint. Litchi Virtual Mission can even fly (simulate fly) the mission before you fly it for real. I don't need anything smarter that that! I hope this info is helpful.
PS: All these questions above have been answered on the P3P phantompilots.com pages. (just for reference) Do a search there too.
Joe
KC7GHT

 

[AMann]

If you select the gears (upper right hand corner in running app window), and scroll down on the Settings screen, you will see Go Home Altitude and Signal Lost Behavior and Smart Return To Home selections. That lets you set RTH options and height.

 

[Grantt]

And right stick backward slows it down and holding it down let the bird fly the mission backwards. I find this very useful for re-doing moves that have been not right in the first place

I was not aware of this feature. Good to know. So if the mavic is flying sideways along its mission (strafing), do you still move the right stick forward/back to speed up/slow down? Or do you move the sticks side to side?

 

[Grantt]

The drone will continue on its mission when signal is lost.

 

[Grantt]

If you plan a mission beyond battery capacity will the drone fly up to fall or will it meet the safe limit to return?

I've been trying to test this one. I tried to refly a long mission after one mission was completed. The battery was around 60% after the first flight. I thought it could make it for another round, but when I tried to upload the mission, I got an error message and I couldn't start it. I'm guessing Litchi may have given me that error message because it did some internal calculation and determined the battery was drained to low to make it. But I cannot say with certainty that that was why I got the error. I will have to do more testing to be more sure.

That being said, I have been on a mission where the mavic could barely keep up with the wind. It struggled along going maybe 0.5 to 1 mph (I was watching the speed on my controller). I could see the Mavic and I still had signal. Then the winds slowed down (or the Mavic flew into an area away from the gusts). It started to go at normal speed on its mission, around 10 mph away from me and I knew I would be losing signal after a minute or so (I've flown this mission multiple times before). This freaked me out because I felt that if the head winds returned and slowed the Mavic down to a crawl again after I had lost signal, it might just sit there, trying to fly it mission and unable to move. I would have no signal to tell it to return home. It would just sit there until the battery ran low, then it would try to automatically return home. But at that point, the drone may be too far away to make it back home with the available battery, and it would be lost. The lesson: be very careful about flying Litchi missions in high winds beyond signal's reach.

 

[webvan]

Well if it's facing a strong headwind and decided to RTH on low battery it shouldn't have a problem making it back normally ?

 

[dan.utinske]

Buy the Litchi App and test it. It is worth ten times the price to me. I have over 600 air miles on my P3P with most of those miles using Litchi, and a large percentage of those miles as Litchi missions. I started using Litchi because DJI Go didn't have waypoints. Litchi Mission Hub and Litchi Virtual Mission can now calculate and program the required altitude at each waypoint. Litchi Virtual Mission can even fly (simulate fly) the mission before you fly it for real. I don't need anything smarter that that! I hope this info is helpful.
PS: All these questions above have been answered on the P3P phantompilots.com pages. (just for reference) Do a search there too.
Joe
KC7GHT

Is it possible with Litchi to set a way point as a point of interest when flight planning. If it is possible, what does the drone do at the POI? What I'd like to be able to do is takeoff and @ 30' start the mission to fly to a couple way points, then on to POI, and return via a couple way points the RTH. Is that even doable?

 

[sar104]

Is it possible with Litchi to set a way point as a point of interest when flight planning. If it is possible, what does the drone do at the POI? What I'd like to be able to do is takeoff and @ 30' start the mission to fly to a couple way points, then on to POI, and return via a couple way points the RTH. Is that even doable?

A POI is not the same as a waypoint. The aircraft flies a route defined by the waypoints, and points the camera at POIs.

 

[AMann]

You can set independent points of interest near your waypoints and have it orbit a point of interest, pointing towards it as it circles or goes by it, etc.

^beat me to Posting it...

 

[53-63-6f-74-74]

Is it possible with Litchi to set a way point as a point of interest when flight planning. If it is possible, what does the drone do at the POI? What I'd like to be able to do is takeoff and @ 30' start the mission to fly to a couple way points, then on to POI, and return via a couple way points the RTH. Is that even doable?

Take a look at the Mission Hub. You may be getting your terminology confused. The Mission Hub is free to use and plan flights with. "Straight Line" missions can have actions programmed at each waypoint (which may include turning to film/photograph a POI). "Curved" missions cannot. You DO need an RC connection to perform the waypoint actions. However, you don't need any RC connection whatsoever to fly a curved path mission, except to start it. Yaw and altitude are uploaded to the aircraft but no waypoint actions are able to be used in curved paths. If connection IS maintained on a curved path flight then you may also program gimbal pitch changes, speed changes, and POI focuses. Last weekend I flew a 3.5 mile mission in the mountains. I lost signal at about 1 mile due to the densely forested area and terrain - the mission continued and I regained signal after 8 minutes as my path continued back to the starting point. I was able to capture video that would have been impossible to get if flying manually.

 

[RobertJC]

That being said, I have been on a mission where the mavic could barely keep up with the wind. It struggled along going maybe 0.5 to 1 mph (I was watching the speed on my controller). I could see the Mavic and I still had signal. Then the winds slowed down (or the Mavic flew into an area away from the gusts). It started to go at normal speed on its mission, around 10 mph away from me and I knew I would be losing signal after a minute or so (I've flown this mission multiple times before). This freaked me out because I felt that if the head winds returned and slowed the Mavic down to a crawl again after I had lost signal, it might just sit there, trying to fly it mission and unable to move. I would have no signal to tell it to return home. It would just sit there until the battery ran low, then it would try to automatically return home. But at that point, the drone may be too far away to make it back home with the available battery, and it would be lost. The lesson: be very careful about flying Litchi missions in high winds beyond signal's reach.

Hmm, flying drones is a bit like flying planes, it is really worthwhile to check the weather and there are great apps to look at wind profiles in metres above ground (UAV Forecast for example). I check the wind and if I have planned an extra long mission, I'll run it so that the upwind part is done before the downwind part. Flying in winds that are as strong in km/hr as the max capacity of the drone is asking for trouble in my humble opinion. With the UAV Forecast I check the predicted wind conditions before I hop on a plane to take some footage elsewhere in the world. This has saved the day already a number of times.

Some of my missions are reaching the 30% mark of battery power so it is critical to check what that mass of air is that you are flying in.

Cheers, happy flying

Robert