I have had my M3C for several months now, and have only had one hands-off precision landing on the pad. While I have no trouble landing manually, this inaccuracy almost never happened with my Mavic Air 2. I always wait to take off until I have at least 12 satellites on the display, and fly vertically to 25-30 feet to let the aircraft look at its home point environment. I am using the RC Controller. I am wondering if some other setting has disabled precision landing or if I should send it back to DJI for repair.
Mavic 3 Classic Precision Landing
- Thread starter Jan Smith
- Start date
mobilehomer
Well-Known Member
Number of satellites has nothing to do with accuracy. It is the spread in the sky. You need to wait until the Homepoint is set, then go straight up at least 22', this sets Precision Landing.
For me a noticeable feature of a precision landing by a Mavic 2 is that when it arrives over the home point it turns to face in the same direction that it was facing when it took off.
If the Mavic 3 cine has the same feature, did you notice it doing this, or not doing this, when it 'missed'?
If the Mavic 3 cine has the same feature, did you notice it doing this, or not doing this, when it 'missed'?
The M3 did indeed face the same direction as when it took off. On the precision landing issue, I just got off an online chat with DJI support, and they said the issue has been referred to their engineers, and to expect a firmware update to address the problem. They do not think my aircraft is defective. Fingers crossed they get it fixed soon. I do not mind landing manually at all, but we have all paid for this feature, so it should work!
Not arguing with you but .... and again this is based on the behaviour of other DJI drones and the presumption that the Mavic 3 has similar behaviours.
With my Mavic 2 I can manually adjust the horizontal postioning of the drone during a precision landing, can you do the same? My normal landing spots are surrounded by trees and I find it difficult to judge if the drone is clear of those trees so often 'nudge' it into obviously open airspace during the landing phase.
I use RTH quite a bit ... to bring the drone over head but 99 times out of 100 the actual landing is done entirely manually.
That said when, in a place with no trees and a distinctive take off point, the M2P or M2Z landed with the camera over a coin sized clump of moss that the camera had been over at take off.
The latter leads to a question, how distinctive were these missed landing spots?
With my Mavic Air 2 and with the Mavic 3 Classic I can make adjustments as needed to be sure the aircraft lands safely. With the Air 2 this generally is not necessary when doing precision landings -- it lands squarely at the center of the pad almost always; with the 3 Classic I always have to take control. The error has been as little as a 1m and as much as about 6m. The landing spot is on the deck (about 6x6m square) attached to our house, with an orange "H" pad centered on it. With the contrasting railings and posts, there should be enough optical detail for the system to recognize.
that's not good.
Is the main camera horizontal or vertical during these descents?
With the Mavic 2 it's almost always horizontal but I have seen a number of posts suggesting that one or more of the Fly App using drones point the main camera downwards during a precision landing, as if the main camera was used to assist the precision.
I am not sure if that is scuttlebug or if there is truth in it but if the main camera is horizontal then it might be worth trying pointing it downwards.
With all my drones once the drone is very low, under 'say' 1m, the camera is levelled to the horizontal around that height but beyond that time the main camera's assitance might not be necessary
I normally point the camera down as the aircraft begins its descent. I believe the fixed optical sensors on the bottom of the aircraft record the scene after launch and then are used to match that scene on landing without the camera being involved, but I could be wrong. In any case, I have it pointing down as a matter of practice and to help me fly manually if needed.
That's probably your issue.
You aren't waiting for the homepoint to be recorded.
Although it is possible, with only 12 sats it's almost certain that the drone's GPS reception is not good enough for good location data and to record a home point.
Your Air 2 received signals from two different satellite constellations (GPS + Glonass).
But the Mavic 3 is listening in to 3 satellite systems (GPS + Gallileo + Beidou).
The drone needs an absolute minimum of 6 sats, well spread across the sky to provide good location data.
With three different sat systems and only 12 sats, it's likely that a lot of your sats are bunched up and close together, particularly if the drone doesn't have a clear view of most of the sky.
To record a home point, the number of sats is usually going to be closer to 20, but sometimes it could need even more.
Instead of relying on some magic number, you need to wait until the drone's flight controller tells you that the location data is good enough and the homepoint has been recorded.
To do that, keep an eye on the satellite icon in the top right of the screen.
When location data is poor, the icon is red.
When location data is better and the drone has an approximate home point, the icon changes to yellow-ish
When location data is good and the home point has been recorded, the icon changes to white.
These two examples show why waiting for 12 sats or even 20 sats doesn't ensure that you have a home point.
The number of sats isn't the most important factor .... Wait for white.
Another point that is also important for Precision Landing to work properly is that you need to have a suitable ground pattern or texture with identifiable features.
If it's featureless like all smooth, black asphalt or green grass, it will be difficult for the technology to work properly.
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From Page 19 of the Users Manual:
This guy's short video has been my experience
DJI Mavic 3 Precision Landing
This guy's short video has been my experience
DJI Mavic 3 Precision Landing
Not my flight. I use the RC-Pro, this fellow looks like he's using an RC-N1. I don't think the controller type will affect the precision landing quality.
I’m hesitant suggesting this to such an experienced pilot Yorkshire, but if you have your crosshairs on and the camera at 90 degrees, shouldn’t you see if you are clearing your trees from quite an altitude? That works for my Air2S.
Naaah the trees here .... move lol, think Ents or Whomping Willow.
The truth is, I still wouldn't trust it.
I have a brand new Classic, and my first aircraft with precision landing so I have been testing it. I almost always landed my P3P manually as the autolanding was never very accurate using GPS alone, but this aircraft has auto landed perfectly dead center on my landing pad (take off point) 3 out of 3 times so far. I do notice that in addition to the message that I get on both the Phantom and the Mavic " the home point has been recorded, please check it on the map", the Mavic gives me a second message when taking off straight-up for 7 meters (as instructed in the manual to activate precision landing) that says "the home point has been updated". Now this is only a guess as there is no documentation that I have found on this message, but does this message indicate that the precision landing point has been recorded? If so, are you getting this second message every time? Or only the times your precision landing works properly? If you move horizontally in any direction immediately after take off your precision landing won't be recorded.
No ... I never bother with precision landing and fly off rather than vertically to satrt.
On most flights I also get the Home point has been updated message.
I do the same thing, and I get the second message, too, and wonder if it overwrites the original one recorded at the the launch site, moving it a bit.
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