hallmark007 Posted at 2017-11-12 04:16
I think one thing is very clear, it was landing on a table if OP could do nothing with stick control to manoeuvre his AC to land safely, it was only 4ft high he could have easily caught it before it fell. It would not have tumbled over and crashed.
He could still have come here and made his point, but the easiest way to make his point was to show his full phantomhelp log, he chooses not to do this, that’s his prerogative, but you choose to keep defending the OP regarding what happened with minimal proof and you refuse to answer any questions regarding the main point he was making, as to whether the pilot be given full control in all circumstances or whether some automatic modes are necessary on these drones.

I’m not refusing to answer the question as I don’t even remember it being asked of me, nor do I see the relevance of my answer, but if it helps you sleep at night then yes I do think there needs to be automation but in a forced to land situation you should at least be able to reposition the drone.
Also I will tell another thing that is very clear hear, if you have never experienced critical battery below 8% then the manual will not help you as there’s no mention of what happens and think DJI needs to address this and update their manual.
Regardless of the reasons why someone ends up in this situation, we need to know what to expect.

PROBLEM SOLVED!!! I figured out what happened and turns out it is undocumented, so unless you experience it the only way is for someone to tell you about it.

When landing in critical battery mode, you are able to control the drone until you are 1 foot(.3m) off the ground and are moving slowly. Then a message will pop up on your screen with a countdown asking for you to initiate auto landing mode or to cancel. No sound plays to tell you that the notification has popped up and the drones light patterns do not change so you have to be watching your screen. If the countdown finishes without you pressing cancel, it will go into a forced landing mode which you can not cancel out of and can not control.

I do not have a problem with this system. At least I know now that its not gonna take away my controls until I am very close to the ground and probably already landing.

The only way I can think to make this system better, is to make an easily recognizable sound occur any time a notification pops up so if you are watching the drone you can know to look at your screen.

Hohh20 Posted at 2017-11-12 15:58
PROBLEM SOLVED!!! I figured out what happened and turns out it is undocumented, so unless you experience it the only way is for someone to tell you about it.

When landing in critical battery mode, you are able to control the drone until you are 1 foot(.3m) off the ground and are moving slowly. Then a message will pop up on your screen with a countdown asking for you to initiate auto landing mode or to cancel. No sound plays to tell you that the notification has popped up and the drones light patterns do not change so you have to be watching your screen. If the countdown finishes without you pressing cancel, it will go into a forced landing mode which you can not cancel out of and can not control.

As long as you have landing protection turned on and this is covered in the manual under landing protection.

Unless there is some manual that I do not know of, I do not see any mention of this in the documentation I have. The last thing that I see concerning it is, "When the Critical Battery Level Warning activates and the aircraft is descending automatically, you may push the throttle up to maintain the aircraft's altitude and navigate it to a more appropriate location for landing."

Hohh20 Posted at 2017-11-12 16:10
Unless there is some manual that I do not know of, I do not see any mention of this in the documentation I have. The last thing that I see concerning it is, "When the Critical Battery Level Warning activates and the aircraft is descending automatically, you may push the throttle up to maintain the aircraft's altitude and navigate it to a more appropriate location for landing."

Page 18 landing protection Function , it’s there you will find it and what occurs during critical battery.

It explains a bit about the auto land prompt but it doesn't explain that you are unable to cancel or control it while that mode is active. Needs a rewrite I guess.

In my opinion, any time you are in forced landing mode, it is a pilot error. And probably you could say the same thing for (non pilot switched) auto-landing mode.   It is akin to flying your airplane until your tanks are dry, next step is engine(s) shutting off.  Except in very special occasions, you should be landing with plenty of battery left to avoid emergencies.  If your craft is in auto-landing and you hit someone or cause damage because you don't have enough energy left to properly fly your aircraft, that's on the pilot.

KM5RG-Robert Posted at 2017-11-12 16:47
In my opinion, any time you are in forced landing mode, it is a pilot error. And probably you could say the same thing for (non pilot switched) auto-landing mode.   It is akin to flying your airplane until your tanks are dry, next step is engine(s) shutting off.  Except in very special occasions, you should be landing with plenty of battery left to avoid emergencies.  If your craft is in auto-landing and you hit someone or cause damage because you don't have enough energy left to properly fly your aircraft, that's on the pilot.

I agree with this. One thing that is not mentioned anywhere in the manual is that the battery percentage shown on the screen is not necessarily that accurate. And that is not a fault either, it is because measuring the amount of battery left is a very complicated and difficult thing to do accurately. For safety reasons, you should never rely on the capacity value, as in: 'It says there is 4% left so I should be able to fly it for another minute or so'.

If you are still flying when the indicated capacity drops below, say 10%, then you are flying on fumes and should get out of the sky immediately, as the battery could run flat totally any second.

Hohh20 Posted at 2017-11-12 16:32
It explains a bit about the auto land prompt but it doesn't explain that you are unable to cancel or control it while that mode is active. Needs a rewrite I guess.

I think you will find it is explained in very simple easy to understand english. I’m sure you can read the bit about critically Landing well that is auto landing.

Hohh20 Posted at 2017-11-12 15:58
PROBLEM SOLVED!!! I figured out what happened and turns out it is undocumented, so unless you experience it the only way is for someone to tell you about it.

When landing in critical battery mode, you are able to control the drone until you are 1 foot(.3m) off the ground and are moving slowly. Then a message will pop up on your screen with a countdown asking for you to initiate auto landing mode or to cancel. No sound plays to tell you that the notification has popped up and the drones light patterns do not change so you have to be watching your screen. If the countdown finishes without you pressing cancel, it will go into a forced landing mode which you can not cancel out of and can not control.

I had this pop up as well, I think this is when you can’t move the drone up or down, I think you could still reposition though, not 100% sure on that though

mic75 Posted at 2017-11-12 17:04
I had this pop up as well, I think this is when you can’t move the drone up or down, I think you could still reposition though, not 100% sure on that though

And this is most likely why it went from forced landing to auto landing.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-11-11 07:46
The OP clearly said his battery went critical and was forced landed, this is not what happens, so what is it you think we are missing?
Maybe you need to go back and read the post to understand it.

Hallmark are you making this up as you go because first you said force landing is not what happens and now you’re saying it’s under “landing Protection” in the manual.

mic75 Posted at 2017-11-12 17:26
Hallmark are you making this up as you go because first you said force landing is not what happens and now you’re saying it’s under “landing Protection” in the manual.

what you and the OP are talking about is landing protection and i have had to shown both of you that its covered in your manual. so one thing we do know is that Geebax was right when he said go read the manual.
ill point you to your post number 80 where you say its undocumented (Wrong)

you said in an earlier post that OP's aircraft was not responding to controls when in fact it was , so you can be as rude and insulting  as you have been to me and also Geebax, but you got it wrong thats it.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-11-12 17:37
what you and the OP are talking about is landing protection and i have had to shown both of you that its covered in your manual. so one thing we do know is that Geebax was right when he said go read the manual.
ill point you to your post number 80 where you say its undocumented (Wrong)

I didn’t get it wrong, there is no mention of it under RTH or Critical battery and there needs to be, also the controls are unresponsive except for orientation. You only know this because landing protection was mentioned and before that you knew nothing of it in the manual because it’s not under critical battery.
You’re the ones being rube and insulting, I treat people how they treat me so you get what you give.
Also he had read the manual so there Geebax was wrong just like all of you, you didn’t even know about this before because you’ve never experienced it, you only know what’s in the manual and as I said there’s nothing in RTH or Critical battery and there should be.

mic75 Posted at 2017-11-12 18:10
I didn’t get it wrong, there is no mention of it under RTH or Critical battery and there needs to be, also the controls are unresponsive except for orientation. You only know this because landing protection was mentioned and before that you knew nothing of it in the manual because it’s not under critical battery.
You’re the ones being rube and insulting, I treat people how they treat me so you get what you give.
Also he had read the manual so there Geebax was wrong just like all of you, you didn’t even know about this before because you’ve never experienced it, you only know what’s in the manual and as I said there’s nothing in RTH or Critical battery and there should be.

I think you must be looking at an old manual or something else. It is very clear in the manual exactly what happens under these circumstances.

Jenee 2 Posted at 2017-11-12 23:10
I think you must be looking at an old manual or something else. It is very clear in the manual exactly what happens under these circumstances.

Yes you are correct, my Ipad was version is 1.2, Just updated it.

mic75 Posted at 2017-11-12 18:10
I didn’t get it wrong, there is no mention of it under RTH or Critical battery and there needs to be, also the controls are unresponsive except for orientation. You only know this because landing protection was mentioned and before that you knew nothing of it in the manual because it’s not under critical battery.
You’re the ones being rube and insulting, I treat people how they treat me so you get what you give.
Also he had read the manual so there Geebax was wrong just like all of you, you didn’t even know about this before because you’ve never experienced it, you only know what’s in the manual and as I said there’s nothing in RTH or Critical battery and there should be.

I think you will find that as soon as OP said he found out the reason of what happened, and that the problem was undocumented, I pointed that what he was talking about was documented. You also posted that this was undocumented.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-11-13 04:08
I think you will find that as soon as OP said he found out the reason of what happened, and that the problem was undocumented, I pointed that what he was talking about was documented. You also posted that this was undocumented.

Yes and that was based on my old version of the manual and I only saw your bottom picture which was without any mention of critical battery and return to home.

So how many of you had this updated version of the manual because there was no mention of it at the time of the original post and with comments saying this is not what happens go read the manual and there is no forced landing without control.

mic75 Posted at 2017-11-13 21:11
Yes and that was based on my old version of the manual and I only saw your bottom picture which was without any mention of critical battery and return to home.

Well maybe you need to go read it again and you will see it does mention critical battery.

hallmark007 Posted at 2017-11-14 02:02
Well maybe you need to go read it again and you will see it does mention critical battery.

I did, now my Theory knowledge matches my  Practical knowledge.

mic75 Posted at 2017-11-12 18:10
I didn’t get it wrong, there is no mention of it under RTH or Critical battery and there needs to be, also the controls are unresponsive except for orientation. You only know this because landing protection was mentioned and before that you knew nothing of it in the manual because it’s not under critical battery.
You’re the ones being rube and insulting, I treat people how they treat me so you get what you give.
Also he had read the manual so there Geebax was wrong just like all of you, you didn’t even know about this before because you’ve never experienced it, you only know what’s in the manual and as I said there’s nothing in RTH or Critical battery and there should be.

Hi mic75.

You are right.  I have enough experience on this topic using Litchi, instead of Go4.  Litchi depends on Go4 settings to this apply to both.

Using Litchi, SMART RTH WARNING is under speech settings.  It is only a voice warning, that  does not affect your flight characteristics at all.  You can say it is a decorative function.  It will never do a RTH as you correctly say.  You can set it wether using Litchi or using GO (Aircraft Battery Settings/Low Battery Warning).  What you set using GO will be reflected on Litchi.

On Litchi, you CAN NOT set the CRITICALLY LOW BATTERY WARNING, you must use GO.  This setting is very important and really critical, mainly when your are flying Litchi Missions (fully autonomous).  This setting is not a warning but an actual limit for the AC to make autonomous decisions.  When this signal is triggered, the AC will land wherever it is.  So you must be careful of being in the right place at that moment.

One confusion here very common (maybe not yours) is what happen when during a mission, the AC CALCULATES (it is the aircraft who makes the calculation, not GO, GO could be disconnected) at any portion of the flight that it will not be able to complete the rest of the mission.  On this situation, the AC will enter into the RTH procedure if and only if THE SMART RTH setting WAS ENABLED before departure. If you do not enable it, the AC will continue its mission till the point where it gets the CRITICAL low battery level and will land at that point.

If Smart Return To Home (RTH) is enabled before any mission, you can be assured (to the extent of Murphy's Law) that your drone will not be lost.

As important as enabling RTH function, is setting the RTH altitude.  Please pay careful attention to this setting, because when the drone kick in the RTH procedure, it will go first to this altitude and then will get a unique heading, pointing to HOME position and flying to there horizontally.   If you set it to 500 m and do not need it, you will spend battery unnecessarily and will activate RTH more promptly.

Nevertheless, there exist situations on which you could want to have Smart RTH disabled, as when flying over the water around a boat or even when you desire to land in the middle of a mission, before returning to the initial waypoint.  To get this you should have to have many fake waypoints over the landing waypoint, that force the drone to go up and down over the desired landing point, till its battery gets depleted (i.e. it gets the CRITICALLY LOW BATTERY WARNING LEVEL).

My personal recommendation is that you assume that your drone will be out of control and that it will take autonomous decisions, so carefully do your planning and setting of the flying parameters.

To be sure of all that I have exposed here, you must transcend page 13 of the manual, by far.

I hope this exposition will can help others to be more confident to the RTH function.

Regards.


P.S.:  One misterious issue is why DJI do not include all of these details on their manuals.  My guess is one out of two:  It is an accelerated world or they want you to ask them in order to make use of statistics.  

Note that this thread is from 2017

I have my low battery warning set at 30%  ,   When I Hit RTH,   I cancel it when it is close,  so I have complete control of it during landing,   so as to hand catch.