RTH and Changing Of Homepoint

[DrizzyDrones]

Ok so the thread that brought this up is about something else but it has me wanting to know. So has anyone tested using the RTH to essentially send flight on a mission. So if I were to drive away from my house lets say 8km (straight) I know my backyard has plenty of room for landing errors but clearly I would lose signal before flying that far. But lets say im 8km away i lift off start recording then change the home point to my backyard (8km away) then hit the rth button would signal range not be a factor and essentially as long as the battery and wind aren’t a problem essentially the mini will fly that path taking video and if I drove home I could probably manually land it. It’s probably not the safest thing to do but as long as it is ideal conditions it would essentially be using the home point as waypoint. Also this is all hypothetical and I don’t want or plan to break any laws. Its just discussion. But essentially the battery and conditions would be be the variables in making it and pilot and signal are irrelevant? Has anyone ever tested something like that... and it doesn’t need to be a distance thing couldnt it be used like way point as long as you change the home point before the decent because i seen that once landing starts changing the home point doesnt make the drone stop landing but in saying that in sure u could cancel landing and change it. It could be useful and allow to focus on getting the footage because you would still have yaw and gimbal u just cant change the course. So both questions would the mini fly as far as the battery will allow if homepoint is set far away and within signal range could you use it as a single waypoint changing it throughout the flight. (Might be better to change the failsafe to hover) in event of singal losss just use the stick and fly back towards you until you get video back

 

[scro]

Didn't @jamesdc report back on the other thread that he tested that exact idea for a short run (300m) and it worked as expected?

You can certainly set the home point somewhere to essentially fly a single straight leg mission and then focus on framing for filming while the drone moves along its RTH path.

"in event of singal losss just use the stick and fly back towards you until you get video back". You've lost signal from the drone so there's a good chance the drone has lost (or will very soon lose) signal from the RC too, and is heading further out of range.. worth remembering.

 

[DrizzyDrones]

Sorry if it was answered in other thread I must have missed it 300m test answers the waypoint question im curious about the long distance like max range of mini essentially is 4km my relatives have a massive property that is frequently used by hikers and they allow atv use but some people don’t have respect and destroy the land also this time of year for past five years there have been a cpl groups of squatters that set up a tent and they leave their garbage and smashing beer bottles. Im wondering if i went and marked the final destination where i want it if i drove ob quad and launched hit rth would there be any issue other than battery and weather or hardware malfunction that would prevent the mini from going the 8km + and meeting it at the spot and it will record the video the whole time allowing my uncle to scan for problems on the land .

and about the signal loss that i think if trying to use homepoint as waypoints and not long distance setting to hover is the safest option because last thing u want is a rth started when you have homepoint set as waypoint and I don’t know how long after the video drops that u lose stick control but i do know that lots of times I’ve lost video and before it automatically starts rth i have used sticks to either climb altitude or reverse and regain signal before rth start ... personally rather than have it land at the rth waypoint i would rather it hover and if sticks don’t work to bring it back bring myself closer until i get it back. This isn’t something that I would even attempt outside of a safe place with good conditions..

i wonder how hard it would be to make an app that allowed you to set multiple spots and select a failsafe homepoint as it reaches the First point it changes it to the second and so on and if something happens it would use the hp that is set in safety settings. With the sdk hopefully coming in the near future this topic will be irrelevant because hopefully the mini will be stepped up and the ability to do waypoints andmuch more will be done

 

[DrizzyDrones]

The reason my curiosity is there i for some reason have nowhere near 4km range I lose signal long before now i havent really tried in multiple locations and alot of flight have interference around but my uncle has been asking about scanning the land and rather than going one manual flight at a time and watch it i was thinking that i can use a new mem card go one corner of the property and autonomously fly as far as possible diagonally then repeat from each corner landing in the same spot in middle then give him the mem card and he will have a full scan if the land and i can get some quand riding in (follow the drone keeping it in sight ?)

 

[RogerDH]

I've gotten squeamish about setting the home point any place other than where I am, but sometimes you can still make use of the "trick" by just flying to a point such that RTH will bring you back past something you want to shoot. It's nice to be able to concentrate on smoothly panning and tilting the camera as it smoothly flies by in a nice straight line. But it's really annoying to be so limited because the Mini doesn't even support course lock.

 

[DrizzyDrones]

Yeah I agree... in the distance scenario my reason is different than the using it as waypoint.. I would be more concerned doing that then i am about just letting it go ... rth is pretty good and dependable as long as it’s set up correctly and the conditions are good ... doing it as a waypoint u gotta be really careful with signal loss and stuff but im thinking about picking the best open area in the middle of the property going to the corner launching it hitting rth and put the controller away... I believe there should be no reason why it shouldn’t go straight to that mid property area that I already checked out and know there’s lots of room in case landing is way off... my next question is how far do you think the mini will fly In a straight line on a full battery recording video.. it would better to have more than enough juice than it would be to come up short lol ... do you think there is enough juice to cover 7-8 km mabye 6 is a safe bet? It know range claims 4 so ifnu go out 4 and back 4 that would be 8 but at least the first time i wanna make it with lots of juice to spare. And theres a good chance i can make it to the landing place before or as the mini is descending and take control but just in case and during the test i can likely keep in range driving the atv so if there is an issue (wind suddenly picks up ) ill pull over cancel rth and briing it down... when all isnsaid and done I should have 4’videos one from each corner of the property flying to the same mid point then my uncle can watch and determine if there’s any problems going on

 

[RogerDH]

Well, if RTH speed is 8 m/s, then discounting wind, you could fly 12 km in 25 minutes. I'm not sure you could really get that much flight time at that speed, but you should be able to fly 10 km in a little less than 21 minutes, which should be safe with a full battery.

 

[Zbip57]

That sounds like an interesting project and a clever use for your drone. The wild areas of Newfoundland seem like the perfect location to try this out. You're unlikely to encounter any low flying planes.

Ideally you would be able to follow the drone on your quad, keeping it in sight the whole time. But if you're racing cross country at 30km/h on your quad, bashing through blueberry bushes and bakeapples and dodging moose left and right along the way, you'll very likely lose sight of the tiny Mavic Mini.

The Mini's RTH process is very reliable and your plan should work fine, unless it encounters strong headwinds along the way (as if that ever happens in NFLD).

I love NFLD! Wish I could come help with your project. I've been there several times competing in Targa Nfld 2004, 2009, 2010, 2011. My wife used to work for Brian Tobin.