Please Help - Lost Drone running Litchi Mission

[Rodcast]

Hello All,

I was running a Litchi Mission today and my drone started auto landing coming home. I ran the exact same mission earlier in the day and it took about 15 minutes and returned just fine. When I ran it the second time on a full battery, about 15 minutes in to the mission, I received a message on my controller that the drone was auto landing. I have no idea where it landed. Can someone please help? I'll attach the logs from Litchi and DJI app here. I did check the dji go records and the only thing I had were from yesterday. I was hoping that since the controller said it was auto landing that it would log that somewhere. Does anyone know where it would log that? I thought if it would display auto landing on the controller that it somehow had a connection with the app and/or controller that it would log the gps coordinates. Thanks in advance.

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

 

[RayOZ]

Looks like loss connection. It might mean you don't had log of last location.
I avoid flying over houses or build up area. Beside regulations issue, I find flying close to houses causes interference (home wifi?).
Compare the flight path between your first mission and this one. Assuming auto landing occurred near the end of the mission, it should be close by.
Depending on how much battery you have left on the AC, walking around with the RC might get the AC to reconnect. But the battery might be flat by now.

 

[Rodcast]

Thanks for the help. Does anyone know if the controller keeps any logs or data?

 

[Keule]

Does anyone know if the controller keeps any logs or data?

There are some .txt files in the RC. But to my knowledge there is no converter/reader available.
Maybe @BudWalker knows something.

 

[Rodcast]

Great. I’ll try and pull them off and post them here in case anyone can help

 

[BudWalker]

There are some .txt files in the RC. But to my knowledge there is no converter/reader available.
Maybe @BudWalker knows something.

@Rodcast
I'm not aware of a converter for any of the logs on the RC. But, you've submitted the AirData post which can be used to obtain a .csv log containing geo coords info. Maybe @MavicCF could take a look. You might also try submitting the Litchi .csv log

 

[Rodcast]

@BudWalker - I thought I uploaded the latest Litchi .csv file to airdata above. I'm still trying to pull data off the controller too. Thanks for the help.

Btw, do you know if DJI has a lost and found section, or is there a way to notify DJI to alert me if someone tries to connect the drone again?

 

[RayOZ]

Did you stick your name and number on the side of the drone?

 

[BudWalker]

@BudWalker - I thought I uploaded the latest Litchi .csv file to airdata above. I'm still trying to pull data off the controller too. Thanks for the help.

Btw, do you know if DJI has a lost and found section, or is there a way to notify DJI to alert me if someone tries to connect the drone again?

But, AirData doesn't provide the original Litchi .csv log which would be marginally better than the .csv it does provide. IMHO pulling data off the RC won't help much, if at all.

Did you look here
latitude 30.127502, longitude -95.389573
That's the last position in the AirData .csv log.

 

[Rodcast]

Yeah I went to that location and anywhere around there looking but didn’t find it. In fact I searched 7 miles on foot looking for it yesterday. Get like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

 

[MavicCF]

The log shows 95% battery at the end, meaning it could potentially be a long ways away. The battery percent is the red line on the top and it shows it at only 95% with distance increasing rapidly.
There aren't a lot of details in this log like what your critical battery was set at or what commands were being given so I can't tell a lot. I don't know if the original csv. from Litchi would have more than the Airdata one, but its worth a shot if you could find it.
Edit:
I just realized I added a zero to my numbers and was using the wrong units (sigh) it only traveled around 650 meters.

 

[MavicCF]

Maybe @sar104 could extract some more info.

 

[Rodcast]

Thanks for the insight...it was definitely not a windy day. It was probably 5-10mph at the most, but was a calm sunny day.

 

[MavicCF]

Thanks for the insight...it was definitely not a windy day. It was probably 5-10mph at the most, but was a calm sunny day.

Could you try to post a picture of the mission it was supposed to be flying? Did you have your settings set so it would continue flying the mission even if the controller signal was lost? -CF

 

[sar104]

Maybe @sar104 could extract some more info.

There is not much to be learned from the log posted since the aircraft disconnected so early in the flight. I would approach this by pulling up the log from the previous time the mission was flown, check the battery depletion rate, compare the wind fields from the two flights, and try to estimate where the aircraft might have been after 15 minutes. It's odd that the controller would have given an autolanding message that was not recorded by the app.

The winds were not very strong on this flight, but they are indicating up to 17 mph N. Whether that's enough to have prevented mission completion in the absence of some other problem is the biggest question.

So - I'd need the Litchi mission profile and the earlier Litchi flight log to make any progress.

 

[MavicCF]

There is not much to be learned from the log posted since the aircraft disconnected so early in the flight. I would approach this by pulling up the log from the previous time the mission was flown, check the battery depletion rate, compare the wind fields from the two flights, and try to estimate where the aircraft might have been after 15 minutes. It's odd that the controller would have given an autolanding message that was not recorded by the app.

The winds were not very strong on this flight, but they are indicating up to 17 mph N. Whether that's enough to have prevented mission completion in the absence of some other problem is the biggest question.

So - I'd need the Litchi mission profile and the earlier Litchi flight log to make any progress.

That makes sence. The above log seemed almost useless...

 

[Mossiback]

...I was running a Litchi Mission today and my drone started auto landing coming home. I ran the exact same mission earlier in the day and it took about 15 minutes and returned just fine. When I ran it the second time on a full battery, about 15 minutes in to the mission, I received a message on my controller that the drone was auto landing...

...The winds were not very strong on this flight, but they are indicating up to 17 mph N...

Perhaps the logs show it, but you did not mention what your mission speed was set at. With calm winds your first trip was successful but if your trip was set at 10 mph and the wind was 17 mph it could be sent downwind until the low battery forced a landing.

 

[MavicCF]

Perhaps the logs show it, but you did not mention what your mission speed was set at. With calm winds your first trip was successful but if your trip was set at 10 mph and the wind was 17 mph it could be sent downwind until the low battery forced a landing.

The geo log shows it flying in a straight line up until it disconnected without seeming to deviate relative to the wind, which was mostly hitting it from side. I believe his speed was averaging somewhere around 11+ MPH and accelerating (I don't have the stats in front of me so I'm not positive about th acceleration) and that is after any affects from the wind. -CF