Lost Drone, Need Auto Landing Procedure Guess

[Tommygun45]

I know, I am not excited about this, but... it was my wife. I have flown my drones thousands of hours without a major crash or a flyaway. My wife is new at this.

She was flying a Mavic Pro. She took it off and climbed to 100 meters. She then was trying to fly forward and the drone blew away. Winds were very strong and she shouldn't have been flying, but she did. She hit the return to home and the drone kept being blown backwards while facing her. She should have entered sport mode and decreased her altitude or angle but she panicked and jumped in her car and tried to track it down. Either way it lost signal at >1000 meters out with 35% of the battery left flying backward, but oriented forwards trying to return to its departure location.

I am trying to figure out what the procedure the drone would have done would be so I can attempt to locate it. I have the map, I have the inputs, and I have the last known position but it was at 100 meters altitude, being blown backwards at 12-20 meters/second in a straight line from its take off point. I can generally track the direction and can estimate where it would have wound up, but if its battery became too low to make it back, would it just enter a straight landing procedure? Would it land in water? Would it land in a tree or would obstacle avoidance prevent it from landing until the battery died if there was uneven terrain? Basically if the Return to Home automation is active, but due to conditions the drone can't return to home, and the signal is lost, does anyone know what action it would take on its own? In a wooded forest area with a river?

Thanks for any help. And for the record we've flown a Mavic 2 Pro, Phantom 4 Pro Adv, Spark, and Mavic Pro and love these drones. Still am amazed every time I fly them. Thanks anyone.

 

[JohnLietzke]

I know, I am not excited about this, but... it was my wife. I have flown my drones thousands of hours without a major crash or a flyaway. My wife is new at this.

She was flying a Mavic Pro. She took it off and climbed to 100 meters. She then was trying to fly forward and the drone blew away. Winds were very strong and she shouldn't have been flying, but she did. She hit the return to home and the drone kept being blown backwards while facing her. She should have entered sport mode and decreased her altitude or angle but she panicked and jumped in her car and tried to track it down. Either way it lost signal at >1000 meters out with 35% of the battery left flying backward, but oriented forwards trying to return to its departure location.

I am trying to figure out what the procedure the drone would have done would be so I can attempt to locate it. I have the map, I have the inputs, and I have the last known position but it was at 100 meters altitude, being blown backwards at 12-20 meters/second in a straight line from its take off point. I can generally track the direction and can estimate where it would have wound up, but if its battery became too low to make it back, would it just enter a straight landing procedure? Would it land in water? Would it land in a tree or would obstacle avoidance prevent it from landing until the battery died if there was uneven terrain? Basically if the Return to Home automation is active, but due to conditions the drone can't return to home, and the signal is lost, does anyone know what action it would take on its own? In a wooded forest area with a river?

Thanks for any help. And for the record we've flown a Mavic 2 Pro, Phantom 4 Pro Adv, Spark, and Mavic Pro and love these drones. Still am amazed every time I fly them. Thanks anyone.

If you upload your logs maybe we can get some more detailed information.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Aside from uploading the logs you might want to look at Mavic Mini Blown away there are parallels

 

[boblui]

If the wind does not change, the drone will keep going in that direction and speed until the battery reached the autolanding level which is about 11 ~ 14% for M2P depending on the firmware version. You can get an idea on when it happened by extrapolating the battery level curve in the flight log data. Once the time of landing is known, you can tell the landing location. All are rough estimates of course.

 

[DanMan32]

The M2 normally can handle pretty impressive winds. After all, it can fly over 20mph in normal mode, and over 40mph in sport mode. It would have to be pretty bad winds for the M2 to not be able to cope.

If the M2 was succumbed to winds, the M2 may try to avoid obstacles, but obstacle avoidance can't control the winds so OA would be ineffective. It would be like trying to row away from a rock but the river currents being too strong for you to avoid it.
As it descends on critical low battery though, encountered winds may diminish so OA and landing protection will begin to be effective.

 

[Thomas B]

The M2 normally can handle pretty impressive winds. After all, it can fly over 20mph in normal mode, and over 40mph in sport mode. It would have to be pretty bad winds for the M2 to not be able to cope.

If the M2 was succumbed to winds, the M2 may try to avoid obstacles, but obstacle avoidance can't control the winds so OA would be ineffective. It would be like trying to row away from a rock but the river currents being too strong for you to avoid it.
As it descends on critical low battery though, encountered winds may diminish so OA and landing protection will begin to be effective.

OP states the drone is a Mavic Pro, not an M2. I don’t think it has rear obstacle avoidance.

 

[Mazdaman323lx]

Hope you recover your bird , while not being to harsh with your other bird. Hopefully all works out.