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Obstacle Avoidance During RTH & Active Track
1316 7 2019-8-19
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Suly
lvl.1
Flight distance : 3635 ft
United Kingdom
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Hi,
New Mavic Air Pilot here. I had quite a close call yesterday with my drone almost flying itself into a post. My battery warning came on as I had hit 30%. I was right next to my starting point in an empty car park (<10m) away, i was flying probably about 9ft in the air so I new I had more than enough time to land manually after I got the shot I wanted. Anyway long story short my drone went into RTH and there was one obstacle in its path, a little fence, at the entrance of the car park and it flew directly at it full speed. Luckily I reacted just fast enough and pushed up to clear the fence and cancelled the automatic RTH. It got me thinking about RTH and whether or not it would've stopped itself if the sensors picked up there was an obstacle or if it just doesn't use the sensors during return to home? At the speed it was flying I probably would have had 1 second before it would've collided.
If that is the case, I will adjust my flying habits to make sure its always going to be safe in the case of a RTH.
I also had another close call trying to get a shot of my friend doing a football skill whilst using active track. The drone was tracking friend 1 from behind as he ran towards friend 2 to skill past him and then shoot at a goal. Whilst friend 1 was doing his skill past friend 2, activetrack lost him and the drone stopped in place. Friend 1 continued his run and active track picked him up again. The drone then flew really fast towards friend 1 to capture him again and flew really close over friend 2s head, maybe about a ft high. This is another situation where I dont know if the sensors would've stopped if it was going straight at friend 2s head. Again if not, I will adjust my flying to make sure its a lot safer.
2019-8-19
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Ken Storm
First Officer
Flight distance : 178583 ft
United Kingdom
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RTH should return at the RTH set altitude, or if within a certain distance just straight back to the home point. Its in the manual.
You should survey your intended flight area and guesstimate the required altitude above home point required to clear any obstacles that could potentially be in its path.
There have been reports of "drone attacks" caused by the active track, but thank fully it seems rare.
2019-8-20
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Ken Storm
First Officer
Flight distance : 178583 ft
United Kingdom
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Damn.. slow intenet here.. double post removed.
2019-8-20
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Suly
lvl.1
Flight distance : 3635 ft
United Kingdom
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Ken Storm Posted at 8-20 01:34
RTH should return at the RTH set altitude, or if within a certain distance just straight back to the home point. Its in the manual.
You should survey your intended flight area and guesstimate the required altitude above home point required to clear any obstacles that could potentially be in its path.
There have been reports of "drone attacks" caused by the active track, but thank fully it seems rare.

Thats what was weird. My RTH altitude is 30M and it was probably only about 3-4M off the ground when returning to home. I was very close to my home point though so might have just decided to go straight for it. Definitely need to be careful with it.
2019-8-20
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RGMGFitness
Captain
Flight distance : 233757 ft
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United States
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Suly Posted at 8-20 07:17
Thats what was weird. My RTH altitude is 30M and it was probably only about 3-4M off the ground when returning to home. I was very close to my home point though so might have just decided to go straight for it. Definitely need to be careful with it.

Yes, tons of strange things can happen when your drone uses the 'Return To Home' function.  Because the drone returns based upon the DJI GO4 Settings at the time this can often cause issues.  

Personally, I like to CANCEL the Return To Home if it gets initiated automatically and fly the drone back manually, if and whenever possible.  More importantly I try never to let the battery get so low that I'm panicking to get the drone back to me.  Hope that helps......

P.S.  The more you fly the more you'll leave the little nuisances of this drone.  Things to avoid....
2019-8-20
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Suly
lvl.1
Flight distance : 3635 ft
United Kingdom
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RGMGFitness Posted at 8-20 07:29
Yes, tons of strange things can happen when your drone uses the 'Return To Home' function.  Because the drone returns based upon the DJI GO4 Settings at the time this can often cause issues.  

Personally, I like to CANCEL the Return To Home if it gets initiated automatically and fly the drone back manually, if and whenever possible.  More importantly I try never to let the battery get so low that I'm panicking to get the drone back to me.  Hope that helps......

Thanks. I am quite cautious about battery life and normally as soon as I hit that 30% warning I start coming back (I only fly LOS so its never super far away). It has been windy everytime I have tried RTH and it never seems like its gonna land on my landing pad so I tend to cancel it now and just bring it home myself instead to avoid it getting damaged. I don't have enough trust yet to complete the RTH completely on its own. Activetrack is pretty cool but I was pretty disappointed that it lost tracking on my friend when he was wearing a bright white jacket against the green grass, would've thought that would be easy to keep track of but I'm sure there will be instances where it is flawless. My next goal is to track a vehicle so hopefully that works nicer.
2019-8-20
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Ridg
First Officer
Flight distance : 232306 ft
United Kingdom
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Suly Posted at 8-20 07:17
Thats what was weird. My RTH altitude is 30M and it was probably only about 3-4M off the ground when returning to home. I was very close to my home point though so might have just decided to go straight for it. Definitely need to be careful with it.

please read the manual, it states under what conditions the altitude will change regarding distance from homepoint and RTH
2019-8-20
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djiuser_IJ7oTXK2Xt8l
lvl.3

United States
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Suly Posted at 8-20 07:44
Thanks. I am quite cautious about battery life and normally as soon as I hit that 30% warning I start coming back (I only fly LOS so its never super far away). It has been windy everytime I have tried RTH and it never seems like its gonna land on my landing pad so I tend to cancel it now and just bring it home myself instead to avoid it getting damaged. I don't have enough trust yet to complete the RTH completely on its own. Activetrack is pretty cool but I was pretty disappointed that it lost tracking on my friend when he was wearing a bright white jacket against the green grass, would've thought that would be easy to keep track of but I'm sure there will be instances where it is flawless. My next goal is to track a vehicle so hopefully that works nicer.

If you really want to find out what happened then upload the log to PhantomHelp and link to it here.

https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/
2019-8-20
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