RTH Expert Mavic 2? Low battery RTH behaviour on ground away from home point.

[CaptPete]

Searched & could not find any info on this.

What is the RTH low battery behavior when you have landed the Mavic 2 away from the home point? For instance in some cases it can be better to land the drone to capture video/images, with the added benefit of dramatically extending battery life. This could be a ledge, a building or any other suitable surface that can be manually accessed if necessary.

I realise that it's best not to rely on low battery RTH, but just curious of behavior in case of pushing the limit.

 

[Deleted member 114292]

Searched & could not find any info on this.

What is the RTH low battery behavior when you have landed the Mavic 2 away from the home point? For instance in some cases it can be better to land the drone to capture video/images, with the added benefit of dramatically extending battery life. This could be a ledge, a building or any other suitable surface that can be manually accessed if necessary.

I realise that it's best not to rely on low battery RTH, but just curious of behavior in case of pushing the limit.

When you takeoff the home point will be reset to where you took off from.
It is possible to reset the home point to where you are if your controller has GPS.
Please refer to the manual for your aircraft On how to reset the home point.
You’re smart to figure this out in advance.

 

[CaptPete]

When you takeoff the home point will be reset to where you took off from.
It is possible to reset the home point to where you are if your controller has GPS.
Please refer to the manual for your aircraft On how to reset the home point.
You’re smart to figure this out in advance.

Thanks for the quick response. I'm glad to know this in advance, and my follow-up is; will it takeoff and RTH when home is reset to the controller?

 

[Deleted member 114292]

Thanks for the quick response. I'm glad to know this in advance, and my follow-up is; will it takeoff and RTH when home is reset to the controller?

That’s the idea you can move the RTH point to where you are with the controller. I have not actually tried it but it can be done.
Recommend you practice it all first.

 

[DanMan32]

RTH stands for Return To Home, so AC will go to wherever the current homepoint is, regardless of what triggered RTH, such as pressing RTH button, battery getting low, or signal loss when fail-safe set to RTH.

Note though that if the AC is within 60ft of home point, it will land rather than go home when RTH is triggered, regardless how the RTH was triggered. There's also a distance where AC will go home, but at current altitude even if below RTH altitude setting. These alternative behaviors are documented in the manual.

 

[CaptPete]

That’s the idea you can move the RTH point to where you are with the controller. I have not actually tried it but it can be done.
Recommend you practice it all first.

Solid advice!! Will let you know results in a test. One more thing, when home is set to "controller", do you have to run around trying to prevent AC from landing on your head ? Does it use the position you are standing in when set, or does it dynamically update the controller GPS coordinates?

 

[CaptPete]

RTH stands for Return To Home, so AC will go to wherever the current homepoint is, regardless of what triggered RTH, such as pressing RTH button, battery getting low, or signal loss when fail-safe set to RTH.

Note though that if the AC is within 60ft of home point, it will land rather than go home when RTH is triggered, regardless how the RTH was triggered. There's also a distance where AC will go home, but at current altitude even if below RTH altitude setting. These alternative behaviors are documented in the manual.

Thanks Danman. I was actually trying to figure out RTH behaviour when start point was on the ground away from takeoff homepoint. I think "Done" gave me some good info., and I had a few related questions, but I can easily experiment if no one has actually experienced the scenario laid out in #6

 

[Meta4]

Solid advice!! Will let you know results in a test. One more thing, when home is set to "controller", do you have to run around trying to prevent AC from landing on your head ? Does it use the position you are standing in when set, or does it dynamically update the controller GPS coordinates?

If you reset home to the controller's location, it is just the current location of the controller.
It will not continue to follow the controller as it moves.

Thanks Danman. I was actually trying to figure out RTH behaviour when start point was on the ground away from takeoff homepoint. I think "Done" gave me some good info., and I had a few related questions, but I can easily experiment if no one has actually experienced the scenario laid out in #6

The home point is recorded after you power up the drone and it first gets good GPS position information.
If you land somewhere else and don't power down, the home point remains the same when you take off again.
When you power down, the stored home point is gone.
If you later power up again, you get a new home point when GPS position is acquired.

 

[CaptPete]

DanMan32 & Done,
If I understand correctly, the following sequence is correct?

1. Home point A, recorded by GPS (following acquisition) - take off
2. fly to a point B, 500ft away and land - no power power down
3. take off, fly to point C, 800ft away and land - no power down
4. remain at point C until "low battery RTH" activates automatically
5. Action would be takeoff automatically and return to point A?

Thanks for your tolerance

 

[Meta4]

5. Action would be takeoff automatically and return to point A?

As explained in post #8, if you don't power down your home point is unchanged.

 

[MavicFlyer]

To CaptPete:

Your understanding of the RTH behavior in the first 4 steps is correct, i.e., as long as the electronics are not turned off, the HOME location does not change.

What I don't know is if the drone will take off on its own to go to HOME, after RTH indication...

If you take off -after- the RTH indicator is already on, I think that it would try to return to HOME.
If you're already on the ground, I'd think that you wouldn't want to risk RTH because of the possibility that you might not have enough power to get home, and hence I doubt that the drone would automatically do that.

One other thing, I seem to recall something about the drone refusing to take off, if the battery is below a certain level.