Hello there!

Even though the Return to Home feature is a great way to prevent flyaways and user error, it will always have higher risks and take more time than doing a manual return.

In case of RC connection loss, RTH is obviously the only way to return BUT, what if GPS signal is lost? I guess RTH won't work with GPS loss right?

If GPS signal is lost I guess the drone will enter ATTI mode, so my question is: how do you manually return your drone to home in ATTI mode? If the drone is quite far away from the pilot, barely at the visual line of sight, it's extremely difficult to check if it's moving away or towards us. What data do we have available in the Dji Go app in ATTI mode to guide the return?

Thanks!

First of all if the drone is in a clear environment without any tall building or any high trees blocking the signal, it shouldn't loose gps. Gps signal is pretty much bullet proof, unless the gps antenna is poorly designed.

If the drone loose gps but the RC is still connected then your only way home is to use the camera view to find your way home. Climb up to guarantee RC remains connected and orient the drone to
Find your way home...

PascalG Posted at 2017-9-2 09:44
First of all if the drone is in a clear environment without any tall building or any high trees blocking the signal, it shouldn't loose gps. Gps signal is pretty much bullet proof, unless the gps antenna is poorly designed.

If the drone loose gps but the RC is still connected then your only way home is to use the camera view to find your way home. Climb up to guarantee RC remains connected and orient the drone to

There are two issues always happened in Spark. One was the GPS seems easily get lost even flying in open area, second issue was in many cases Compass will also dead after or the same time as the GPS signal lost. If both sensor failed, the Spark should not come back or control by the pilot.

Hmm ... there are plenty quads selling out there that do not equipped with any GPS nor Compass. They are all ATTI mode quads and they are fun to fly, the racing drone. The tiny whoop is one of them and cheap. Get one, fly fun. You will be ready for ATTI Spark.

If GPS is lost and you are on ATTI you still have the Map in the left corner with the home point, the AC red triangle and the "yellow" line towards the homepoint to come back...don't you???

JMR58 Posted at 2017-9-2 13:28
If GPS is lost and you are on ATTI you still have the Map in the left corner with the home point, the AC red triangle and the "yellow" line towards the homepoint to come back...don't you???

If the gps signal is lost, the map on your screen isn't going to refresh and even the heading could be wrong if there is also a problem with the compass.

Only available info will be the camera feed

PascalG Posted at 2017-9-2 13:38
If the gps signal is lost, the map on your screen isn't going to refresh and even the heading could be wrong if there is also a problem with the compass.

Only available info will be the camera feed

Oops didn't encounter this problem yet, always had the straight line back to home!
Thanks for letting me now that this is not reliable on ATTI..

Hi,

What happens when BOTH GPS and RC signal is lost. For the case i couldn't control over RC and also no RTH due to GPS loss. Does it tries to land automatically to current location ?

As far as I know - Spark do not loose GPS, it stopped use it because of compass error. You still can see a lot of satellites locked, but GPS health instantly drops from 5 to 0 when difference between YAW and mag Yaw  too big and switch to ATTI. If you can see AC and/or have video link - no problem. But it would be interesting to receive information from DJI about algorithm used for the case when you at the same time lost control, video link and GPS. In my opinion, AC should be immediately  landed.

Simple, since nobody should be flying BVLOS anyway your aircraft will be in sight. Just fly it home manually.

If you are unsure of orientation of the aircraft familiarize yourself with a few simple tricks that model aircraft users have been using for years to regain orientation at distance (Google it)

You can that practice and hone your skill by flying out to a distance where you cannot tell the orientation of your aircraft. Remain in hover and input full yaw for a few second and ONLY look at the aircraft not the screen.
Release the yaw and you will not know which way the aircraft is pointing. Then by using the methods of reorientation you will be able to fly the aircraft safely back to you without refernce to camera feed, map or heading display.

For people that fly BVLOS - Well, too bad, they deserve to lose their aircraft in the event of a malfunction.... I have no sympathy.

It is very important to know that the reason why the drone loses GPS is because of data processing conflict. Accordingly, the drone stops dealing with GPS to deal with the alternative which is the "IMU" only, this is why it goes to "ATTI" mode. The "IMU" in this case is the only source that the drone can behave with.

A problem might happen if the "IMU" was not calibrated for a long time.

Here you might lose your drone, flying a way.

emresu Posted at 2017-9-20 22:46
Hi,

What happens when BOTH GPS and RC signal is lost. For the case i couldn't control over RC and also no RTH due to GPS loss. Does it tries to land automatically to current location ?

Well this thing happened to me yesterday. Lost both GPS and RC signal while i was flying and it was in my sight (40m distance and 15 m elevation) all of a sudden it started flying to a random direction by itself and i kept saying RTH but the spark was like cant.... weak gps signal!

Flew 965 m away from me!and forced a landing in middle of nowhere which came out to be a jungle with a lot of trees

24 hours passed still cant find it. Checked the history. Went to the last seen location of the drone but its not there...

There is a lot of trees and tall grass in that area

djiuser_rrSuPzJeqABr Posted at 2018-5-18 11:35
Well this thing happened to me yesterday. Lost both GPS and RC signal while i was flying and it was in my sight (40m distance and 15 m elevation) all of a sudden it started flying to a random direction by itself and i kept saying RTH but the spark was like cant.... weak gps signal!

Flew 965 m away from me!and forced a landing in middle of nowhere which came out to be a jungle with a lot of trees

Same thing happened to me. Open a case with DJI, send them your flight recored.

djiuser_rrSuPzJeqABr Posted at 2018-5-18 11:35
Well this thing happened to me yesterday. Lost both GPS and RC signal while i was flying and it was in my sight (40m distance and 15 m elevation) all of a sudden it started flying to a random direction by itself and i kept saying RTH but the spark was like cant.... weak gps signal!

Flew 965 m away from me!and forced a landing in middle of nowhere which came out to be a jungle with a lot of trees

you should initiate RTH through the RC and not through the mobile.

Pressing RTH when it wanders off is not the proper action. Flying it home is.
A shame atti mode can’t be forced on and practiced. So noobs can learn to fly without the nannies.

S.J Posted at 2018-5-19 02:31
you should initiate RTH through the RC and not through the mobile.

I never use my phone as controller .

I clicked the RTH on RC. Still didn't listen to me ...

heliman Posted at 2018-5-19 02:33
Pressing RTH when it wanders off is not the proper action. Flying it home is.
A shame atti mode can’t be forced on and practiced. So noobs can learn to fly without the nannies.

Well mr. Genius, i had no live footage in my phone to see where its going, cause i was down a hill close to a lake

And spark got on top of the hill and started flaying away with a stupid high speed

Its not about being noob its about not being able to see the actual drone cause of that environment that i was flying around.

Thats why the only thing that could have help me was RTH at that moment

emresu Posted at 2017-9-20 22:46
Hi,

What happens when BOTH GPS and RC signal is lost. For the case i couldn't control over RC and also no RTH due to GPS loss. Does it tries to land automatically to current location ?

Landing with the wind it is

djiuser_rrSuPzJeqABr Posted at 2018-5-19 03:27
Well mr. Genius, i had no live footage in my phone to see where its going, cause i was down a hill close to a lake

And spark got on top of the hill and started flaying away with a stupid high speed

Without gps it doesn’t know where home is. Pressing RTH and hoping, is wasting time that could be used to bring it into sight, maybe by ascending, and fly it back before it gets too far away.
Another option could be to immediately take it down where it is (unless it might be over the water).

If GPS is lost, you can manually return the drone home by following the yellow line located on the bottom left corner in DJI GO 4, usually you just follow your path and use FPV as well as line of sight to bring the drone home.

davidmartingraf Posted at 2018-5-19 10:46
If GPS is lost, you can manually return the drone home by following the yellow line located on the bottom left corner in DJI GO 4, usually you just follow your path and use FPV as well as line of sight to bring the drone home.

The one caution to note, if the drone has been hovering for long time and too much battery has depleted because of the time passed during figuring out how to steer the drone home, it's most advisable to locate your most familiar area and safely land the drone. It's better to land your drone immediately in a familiar area than it would be to navigate the drone back without enough battery power and full system functionality.

davidmartingraf Posted at 2018-5-19 10:52
The one caution to note, if the drone has been hovering for long time and too much battery has depleted because of the time passed during figuring out how to steer the drone home, it's most advisable to locate your most familiar area and safely land the drone. It's better to land your drone immediately in a familiar area than it would be to navigate the drone back without enough battery power and full system functionality.

Having your contact information including your FAA Registration Number somewhere on the drone means if someone locates it before you then most likely you will find it. There are so many ways for people who find drones to locate the owner, but if you only include Registration Number and do not report the drone lost to DJI, then it could be difficult for anybody to get the drone back to you?

davidmartingraf Posted at 2018-5-19 10:52
The one caution to note, if the drone has been hovering for long time and too much battery has depleted because of the time passed during figuring out how to steer the drone home, it's most advisable to locate your most familiar area and safely land the drone. It's better to land your drone immediately in a familiar area than it would be to navigate the drone back without enough battery power and full system functionality.

Everyone here talks about how to fly if there is no GPS. The problem and the question is what if GPS and control are lost!
I've read in several posts that the GPS is lost and the control is lost.
Unfortunately, this DJI Spark bug does not allow you to do anything ...

If only GPS signal loss is lost then it will switch to ATTI mode and hover in place. Anyone can bring you home then.

But this is not happening ... It starts and you can not stop it.
So do not ratiocinate how it should have been, but warn the DJI to explain the mistake and look for a solution.

PascalG Posted at 2017-9-2 09:44
First of all if the drone is in a clear environment without any tall building or any high trees blocking the signal, it shouldn't loose gps. Gps signal is pretty much bullet proof, unless the gps antenna is poorly designed.

If the drone loose gps but the RC is still connected then your only way home is to use the camera view to find your way home. Climb up to guarantee RC remains connected and orient the drone to

me and you have wildly different spark experiences.   back when i had a spark, it loved having a mind of its own.  GPS on the spark is hardly bullet proof though specially compared to some other drones like the mavic pro. which has a legit solid GPS that's pretty difficult to have issues with,

the issue with the spark's GPS is down to how it is communicating with the rest of the drone.. for some reason DJI felt it was clever to tie GPS, IMU, Compass altogether which results in some erratic behavior when one of those systems goes down.. IMU has an issue it commonly takes out the GPS, have Compass issue that usually ends up taking out IMU which takes out the GPS..  

Jakab Gipsz Posted at 2018-5-19 12:28
Everyone here talks about how to fly if there is no GPS. The problem and the question is what if GPS and control are lost!
I've read in several posts that the GPS is lost and the control is lost.
Unfortunately, this DJI Spark bug does not allow you to do anything ...

If you have tried sending the control signal input to the drone and it didn't respond, then you have a case with DJI and claim your new drone. but the logs should prove that control stick movements were in place while the drone was happily flying by itself !

Jakab Gipsz Posted at 2018-5-19 12:28
Everyone here talks about how to fly if there is no GPS. The problem and the question is what if GPS and control are lost!
I've read in several posts that the GPS is lost and the control is lost.
Unfortunately, this DJI Spark bug does not allow you to do anything ...

Normally when I loose control, i see that the drone coming back by itself. I don''t understand your case for the moment.

davidmartingraf Posted at 2018-5-19 10:56
Having your contact information including your FAA Registration Number somewhere on the drone means if someone locates it before you then most likely you will find it. There are so many ways for people who find drones to locate the owner, but if you only include Registration Number and do not report the drone lost to DJI, then it could be difficult for anybody to get the drone back to you?

I fully agree

S.J Posted at 2018-5-21 10:02
Normally when I loose control, i see that the drone coming back by itself. I don''t understand your case for the moment.

When the connection is broken, it will come back. That's how it works right.
When the GPS signal is lost, an interference fails, then a compass error, then the connection is lost and will not come back or even go away.
This is a mistake! and unconventional handling of flight events!

Do you understand now?

Jakab Gipsz Posted at 2018-5-21 10:17
When the connection is broken, it will come back. That's how it works right.
When the GPS signal is lost, an interference fails, then a compass error, then the connection is lost and will not come back or even go away.
This is a mistake! and unconventional handling of flight events!

Yes i know about GPS theory.

But the circumstance that u mentioned with multiple failures in a DJI device all at the same time including failure in GPS, compass error and interference from other external device is one in a million cases. Engineering doesn't come close to such errors especially on a DJI product.
Such rare cases only happen when your flight altitude is very low, and the pilot flies in a space where interference is born to happen !!

Did you happen to try to the "Find my drone" feather on the main opening page of DJIgo4 app?  Hit the setting on the top right corner the 3 bars, and look at "Find my drone".  Maybe that might help you locate it?

S.J Posted at 2018-5-22 13:29
Yes i know about GPS theory.

But the circumstance that u mentioned with multiple failures in a DJI device all at the same time including failure in GPS, compass error and interference from other external device is one in a million cases. Engineering doesn't come close to such errors especially on a DJI product.

It may be rare (specifically not with me yet), but here in the Spark forum, I read about 4 or 5 of these. The common in these is that everything is defective (GPS receiver, compass, data connection with the remote control). This could not happen, but it did happen.
otherwise, at each take-off and landing, we fly low ...

PascalG Posted at 2017-9-2 09:44
First of all if the drone is in a clear environment without any tall building or any high trees blocking the signal, it shouldn't loose gps. Gps signal is pretty much bullet proof, unless the gps antenna is poorly designed.

If the drone loose gps but the RC is still connected then your only way home is to use the camera view to find your way home. Climb up to guarantee RC remains connected and orient the drone to

My spark lost GPS and compass and no way I could control it with the controller. I climbed and spun and went left and right. Then went out of sight. The battery said 22%. After a while and it went into landing mode. But the camera stopped and I have no way to find it. The flight plan on the iPhone stopped when it went crazy. It’s gone! 1st flight after coming back from DJI repair from crash... new battery and sd 64 GB card. $500 gone....... sucks