This new SE flies perfectly however it seems to have a built in defect.

According to the logs, one second the VPS is reading altitude at 15', and then with no actual change in altitude it reads 1.5', and will attempt to auto land.

Many forum posts here and elsewhere report this, and Ive had this happen over land, not water, with nearly disastrous results. Numerous posts have reported the erroneous autolanding resulted in the loss of their drowned aircraft.

When is DJI going to correct the erroneous VPS on the mini SE and perhaps other models?

Just as a matter of interest, with the above post what sort of responses do you seek?

It's a clear defect. It places drones at high risk depending on the location.

Since DJI is recognized as the best, the questions remain:how many pilots know their drone is at risk, and when is DJI going to to correct the fault?

Post a flight log so others can see.

It's been widely reported on this forum and on the Mavic forum that the VPS can give incorrect height readings at times.

Most reported cases have occured over water when the VPS is more inaccurate, and a number of aircraft have been lost when at low altitudes.

My case over land, was more complex because I had just received a typical wind warning, and the request to lower altitude. So I held the left stick down a few sec.

Unbeknownst to me a wrong height reading of 1.5' from the VPS had at the same time initiated a landing, even though i was actually about 26' agl. The accidental effect of briefly holding the stick down was to confirm the landing at a bad place. All this took under 5 sec.

So yes it is past time for DJI to correct the erroneous VPS and unwelcome landings.

Hi there. Thank you for reaching out and we're sorry for the trouble that this has caused. We are more than happy to help you with regard to this issue. Could you please post an example or a screen record showing the issue related to the post? In addition, is this issue occurs in a different location? Please keep us posted. Thank you.

These show the kind of VPS errors that are common, and this is over land.

Every tech person at Dji is aware of your VPS errors.

At 2 minutes you see the VPS and IMU heights are about the same.

At 5:36 there's a large error as IMU shows 26' and VPS shows 1.3'.  This error in the VPS initiated a landing, at a very dangerous location.

There's more. This 3 week old SE is extremely unreliable with RTH.

With all RTH settings correct, solid gps, 30+ meters from H, solid rc connection, height over 91', this drone will RTH in about 1/3 of the attempts, and from the same height and location will fail to RTH 2/3 of the time. Instead this drone initiates landing below its current location.  I have tried this at multiple locations with failing results.

With Dji being the finest drone company in the world, it seems the unreliable results I am seeing, establish evidence of what seems to be a poor quality drone.

If you dare....let others analyse your flightlog.

Post the upload link from https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/ on here

cheers
JJB

djiuser_UWwbJhkKO0dX Posted at 10-16 21:05
These show the kind of VPS errors that are common, and this is over land.

Every tech person at Dji is aware of your VPS errors.

These show the kind of VPS errors that are common
Really?
I see the flight data from a lot of flights and I've not noticed false VPS data or heard of it before.

Every tech person at Dji is aware of your VPS errors.
And you know this, how?

There's more. This 3 week old SE is extremely unreliable with RTH.
With all RTH settings correct, solid gps, 30+ meters from H, solid rc connection, height over 91', this drone will RTH in about 1/3 of the attempts, and from the same height and location will fail to RTH 2/3 of the time. Instead this drone initiates landing below its current location.  I have tried this at multiple locations with failing results.
RTH is very reliable.
I'd be interested to see recorded flight data that shows what you describe.

According to the logs, one second the VPS is reading altitude at 15', and then with no actual change in altitude it reads 1.5', and will attempt to auto land.
But you say later on that you held the left stick down for three seconds and that initiated the autolanding.
Simply having the VPS indicate 1.5 feet won't cause the drone to autoland.

Numerous posts have reported the erroneous autolanding resulted in the loss of their drowned aircraft.
The flight data from numerous incidents where flyers make similar claims show that the autolanding was initiated by the flyer.
Do you have any flight data to suport your claims?

Below is just one of dozens of Dji users reporting problems with VPS, most often around water.

Believe that I recall on the Dji site and in the manual cautioning that VPS may be unreliable around water. It is understandable due to the reflection.

In my case, the difference in height readings as posted between VPS and IMU are clear enough.

Based on the experience of so many Dji pilots, it would seem that Dji might want to address this, to help all of us have the most reliable drone possible.

If you actually want to get to the bottom of this, post the actual logs. The ball is in your court if you want help, no one can do anything with regards to YOUR flights with what you have so far posted.
The likes of JJB and Labroides are 'quite good ' at ferreting out problems, though it appears JJB is encountering a somewhat similar problem with a Mini 2.

That said, I think you have posted a similar thread over on Mavicpilots and there too you have been advised to post the actual logs. Over there Slup, Meta4, Sar104 and others are 'quite good' with logs.

BTW your last post cites a post that  is more than 5 years old https://mavicpilots.com/threads/ ... eading-about.13128/
and relates to the Mavic Pro.

I will make a warranty claim with Dji and see what they come up with. It seems that the side by side discrepancy between AVP height and IMU height is clear enough.

As mentioned, when following the suggestion to reinstall the app, it erased my logs, but I had saved copies of those tables.

In the meantime I will find links to the dozen or so reported cases of VPS errors and accidents Ive run across lately, and share them with DJI for their benefit.

I'm sure everyone wants the most reliable drone possible, and Im sure DJI wants that too, so we'll see what they come up with.

djiuser_UWwbJhkKO0dX Posted at 10-17 09:37
I will make a warranty claim with Dji and see what they come up with. It seems that the side by side discrepancy between AVP height and IMU height is clear enough.

As mentioned, when following the suggestion to reinstall the app, it erased my logs, but I had saved copies of those tables.

Hi,

Simple solution to get the flightlogs back.....

That is if the logs (or this log) was/were synced with the DJI server, is yes than...
Open the app and play back the screen video for the log, doing so will transfer the flightlog back on the device from the DJI server.

cheers
JJB

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 10-17 09:06
If you actually want to get to the bottom of this, post the actual logs. The ball is in your court if you want help, no one can do anything with regards to YOUR flights with what you have so far posted.
The likes of JJB and Labroides are 'quite good ' at ferreting out problems, though it appears JJB is encountering a somewhat similar problem with a Mini 2.

VPS height is working great always    if the surface below is not smooth water....

Incorrect VPS height readings can not make the drone climb to great heights....
If a ForcedLanding is active due to 100% sticks down + 0.5 meter measured value : CX is always possible.

Text in post #15 is old (2017! ) and not correct.

cheers
JJB

djiuser_UWwbJhkKO0dX Posted at 10-17 08:08
Below is just one of dozens of Dji users reporting problems with VPS, most often around water.

Believe that I recall on the Dji site and in the manual cautioning that VPS may be unreliable around water. It is understandable due to the reflection.

Below is just one of dozens of Dji users reporting problems with VPS, most often around water.
You can find any number of flyers who might claim a problem with their drone, but that doesn't necessarily mean there was a problem with their drone.
You need to analyse their flight data to see what actually caused their incident, rather than what they imagine or want to believe.
Flight data would show the majority are mistaken and the cause of their incident was not what they guessed at all.

Believe that I recall on the Dji site and in the manual cautioning that  VPS may be unreliable around water. It is understandable due to the  reflection.
What's unreliable about VPS over water, is that it can't be relied on to provide horizontal position holding over water.
But much of the confusion around VPS over water is myth and misinformation  ....  like a lot of what you've accepted.

With regards to missing logs.
In addition to JJB's synching suggestion, your browser's history probably contains the web address for the flight you showed in post #7 but if that was an old upload then the log may have been deleted for PH, they have a limited life span on that site. If, by any chance, you use Airdata then any logs you uploaded to there will still be there unless you yourself deleted them.

However, if you use an Android phone it might be worth looking in the TWO log storage locations mentioned in the instructions on the Phantomhelp upload  page
https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
i.e.   DJI\dji.go.v5\FlightRecord (for older versions of DJI Fly)    &   Android\data\dji.go.v5\files\FlightRecord (for the more recent versions of DJI FLY ).
I haven't reinstalled a recent version of the fly app but I have reinstalled older versions and from memory deleting the older versions left their data file structure behind and I think that might have included the flight logs but that is only an "I think". My normal practise is to move the logs to external storage then delete the app and manually delete its file structure so it would not matter to me if the logs were left behind or deleted as I have back ups, hence I wouldn't take any real notice and consquently the "I think".

I do not know where IOS puts the logs in new versions of the app but if you have an iPhone etc. you presumably know where to look in the 'old' storage place at least.

djiuser_UWwbJhkKO0dX Posted at 10-16 21:05
These show the kind of VPS errors that are common, and this is over land.

Every tech person at Dji is aware of your VPS errors.

You wrote:

"At 2 minutes you see the VPS and IMU heights are about the same. At 5:36 there's a large error as IMU shows 26' and VPS shows 1.3'.  This  error in the VPS initiated a landing, at a very dangerous location."

The IMU height is set and recorded as zero when taking off.  IMU heights are measured by the barometric altimeter, always relative to that zero height of the takeoff location.  The IMU height can even display as negative if the drone descends, for example, to a point lower than the takeoff location such as when flying down into a valley.  Unless you're only ever flying your drone over a totally flat landscape with no obstacles, the IMU height is NOT showing the drone's actual height above ground, only it's height relative to the initial takeoff location.  If you make your drone climb to 30', then fly at that constant height in any direction, the IMU height will show a constant 30' height regardless of whether the drone is flying out over a descending valley or smack into the side of an upsloping hillside.

The VPS height instead is measured by the infrared sensors on the belly of the drone, bouncing an infrared signal off any surface detected below the drone.  This is a very accurate measure of the drone's actual height above any feature detected within range of the VPS infrared sensors.  At the moment of takeoff, the VPS height and the IMU height will equally show the same zero height.  ONLY if the landscape is completely flat with no obstacles, the IMU height and VPS height will continue to agree with each other displaying equal heights, unless the drone climbs to a height exceeding the range capability of the VPS infrared sensors (approx 30'), after which the VPS height records as "N/A".  That means Not Available.  This is not an erroneous or defective reading.  It's merely the effective range limit of that sensor.

Although the VPS height infrared sensors give a very accurate measure of actual height above any obstacle (within that 30' effective range), they don't seem to play any active role whatsoever in the reaction of the drone, except during landing or if an obstacle is detected within ~2' of the belly of the drone.

Now here's where your problem comes in, as shown in your two flight log images.  You seem to think the VPS is in error because it's not showing the same height as the IMU height.  Let's say you take off from your driveway, then fly the drone over the roof of your house.  The VPS and IMU heights will only continue to agree from the moment of takeoff until the drone crosses over the edge of your house's roof.  At that point the IMU height is still displaying the barometric height difference relative to where it started from on your driveway, no matter how close the drone comes to actually touching the roof.  But the VPS height will suddenly cease showing the height above driveway, but now show the actual clearance height between the drone and the roof.  And if that VPS height clearance is less than ~2ft, the drone will climb all by itself to increase the height clearance, similar to when you have the drone hovering in front of you but move your hand up close underneath it.

You wrote: "At 5:36 there's a large error as IMU shows 26' and VPS shows 1.3'.  This  error in the VPS initiated a landing, at a very dangerous location."

Immediately before that moment, the IMU shows 26.6' and the VPS shows N/A.  Let's first look at just that.  The IMU merely knows the drone is 26.6' higher than its takeoff location.  As far as the IMU knows, the drone may have flown off the edge of a steep cliff or it may be hovering inches above your roof.  The barometric altimeter has no way of telling the difference.  It only ever knows how high it is relative to the initial takeoff location.  The VPS however shows "N/A", which means it's out of range of any obstacle.  So presumably the drone is more than 30' above any obstacle at that point, i.e. you've flown it off a high cliff and the VPS can't see bottom.

Suddenly at 5:36 the IMU still shows the same 26.6' whereas the VPS shows only 1.3'.   The IMU has no way of knowing that you've flown the drone over the branch of a tree, but the VPS infrared sensor suddenly detects an obstacle closer than 2' within its underside and commands an automatic climb to avoid hitting that branch.  That data of your flight log image shows something like that happening as the IMU height immediately starts increasing.  You see the drone start climbing all by itself, maybe heading for another branch overhead, and you pull the throttle stick down.  The drone reacts as it is programmed to do.  If the VPS detects "ground" within 2ft of its underside while you're holding the throttle stick down, it commences autolanding.

Rather than posting only snippets of your flight log, if you post a direct link to the entire Phantomhelp report, we could get a better look at what actually happened.  I had a similar incident with my Mini-1 which suddenly and mysteriously announced it was landing.  Luckily it was from a height that gave me sufficient time to react and cancel the landing.  With the help of people much cleverer than me, the flight log was diagnosed to show that the VPS sensor had detected "ground" closer than 2' to its underside because of the mist rising from the waterfall.  As I was holding the throttle down at the time with the drone descending through the mist, it interpreted that as a request to commence auto-landing.

Post the link to the full Phantomhelp report and I'm sure someone will help figure out exactly what happened in your case.  Actual defects are extremely rare.  Misunderstanding or misdiagnosis is much more common.

  Zbip57

I learned something very interesting from those people who are more clever and who helped diagnose the flight data from my own incident with the mist from the waterfall.

I was really confused because my flight data definitively showed that I never depressed the throttle fully down at any point.  So why was auto-landing triggered?  Well, it turns out it doesn't need to be held all the way down.

On the Mavic Mini, if the throttle is held anywhere in the descent range (less than midpoint) continuously for more than three seconds, and the VPS height sensor detects anything within ~2ft of its underside, and the throttle is pulled down to less than ~85% within those 3 seconds (not necessarily fully 100% down), that triggers auto-landing.

I later checked and confirmed this is true in my own driveway.

Auto-landing, like any automated flight mode (except critically low battery or NFZ forced landing), can be instantly stopped with a quick press on the RTH button, either on the controller or on the app screen.