Please post your DAT flight log too. You can upload the DAT file to dropbox.com and post a link back here. If needed, you can find instructions for retrieving the DAT file here.
GPS Tracker or something similar for fly aways
- Thread starter nutsnbolts
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Yes I heard of the trakimo but I don't like the bulkiness despite it's small size. I do like the the Marco Polo due to its size which seems to be tiny. The question is how good will it be to track it.
Lots of DJI drone owners use the Marco Polo tracker. I haven't had the opportunity track down a lost drone with it, but the Marco Polo performed well in some tests I did with it. Others that I've seen mention it have only said good things about it. The reviews are favorable here on Amazon too.
That is pretty cool. Definitely will probably be a Christmas gift. I just watched the video and what I like is it's self contained unit not relying on cell service or GPS service or limitations of Bluetooth.
Thanks for this info.
Two things. First, I have that same tracker device, with a pair of "tags," one for each of my drones. Love it. No issues at all! But I hang mine from the leg via twisties so zero chance of affecting the props.
In response to the above: getting close isn't good enough if there are woods, tall grass, corn fields, et cetera nearby. In the US, the government currently claims 4 meter accuracy is the best we can achieve in ideal circumstances. That 16 square meter area can be huge when looking for something that small under those circumstances. Also, the controller can only report the last _known_ position. If it went straight down from there, maybe you're in luck.
But for me, the clincher is trees. I lost my $500 Spark in a tree where I saw it crash, not 50 feet away from me. But I could not see it in the tree, even though I knew exactly where it should have been. No 'tree guy' will go up there for a reasonable fee without knowing where the target is (believe me, I tried). A really, really expensive lesson.
Virtual1
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FYI the tile and some of the other finder fobs can play a sound when triggered from the app on the phone, or vice versa to find your phone if you have a tile, press the button on the tile. So when you get close with your phone you can trigger the sound and find it in the grass that way without knowing the direction, The problem with the tile is non replaceable battery, you can send it in for a discount replacement but there are other similar products that have a user replaceable coin battery and cost less to boot.
Find my drone app worked good and help us out on general direction but drone was up at 63mtrs high. So after going to the spot that it told us it would be (1km away) we almost gave up. Then I seen that it was 63mtrs up and thought try farther down then yep 300mtrs up in general direction it was in someone's front yard. App did help but maybe keep this in mind
VETTE198620002000
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Thats not so in my case , i lost complete signal 40ft above me with the remote and with my phone attached and it did a fly away 1 mile away. i never got the signal back and tracked it with the find my done app, granted i still want to get a gps tracker since a lot of people express its a wise move.
Virtual1
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Did you make sure to get your home point set when you took off? It sounds like it flew to a prior home point?
VETTE198620002000
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home point was set , it just got magnetic interference and lost all signal and fly away like a free bird. but away the find my drone app worked great took me with in 3 ft of the drone. im still getting a tracker , i just think i was lucky this time.
Out of curiosity. If you took off from the home point and there was no magnetic interference. I'm assuming you ran into an area that magnetic interference was present? So no matter whether you had a home point or not this could occur?
Virtual1
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magnetic interference will affect the compass but should not affect the GPS. So it would know where to go, but not which direction it's facing. That's what creates the problem - it turns to face home, drives forward, and then discovers it's heading in the wrong direction. Now with sufficient "smarts" it could determine there is a compass problem and adjust course based on its current "track", but I have yet to see any programmer think of this and write their software to adjust for it, which is a bit depressing. (I'm a coder) What's more likely to happen is as it moves, the magnetic interference will go away or at least change and it will get different (and hopefully correct) compass bearings and adjust and head home. If it can avoid falling back into the same compass trap it was in earlier, you'll be fine. (it may make a large wide detour around the area of interference) Otherwise it might just make several short scoots around in the area as it struggles to find its way home, possibly getting stuck. The best answer to this is "GPS Track".
For anyone thinking of coding for this, what you do is when you notice track is significantly differing from course, you stop correcting the gyro from the magnetometer, (do NOT disable accelerometer) and start correcting the gyro based instead on the gps track. Keep that up until you go n seconds with the magnetometer mostly agreeing with the gps track, and then you can resume gyro updates from magnetometer. As long as you can get good GPS, that will get your autopilot out of a "magnetic trap". It may "fly a little drunk" while it's doing this, but it WILL be staggering its way back home.
DJI, forward this to your autopilot coders and confirm they are falling back to GPS Track in the event it is not agreeing with magnetometer readings. If they don't understand (or tell you I don't know what I'm talking about), feel free to put them in contact with me, as it will really help prevent fly-aways. I may need to teach your whippersnappers how to do compass sensor fusion manually
For anyone thinking of coding for this, what you do is when you notice track is significantly differing from course, you stop correcting the gyro from the magnetometer, (do NOT disable accelerometer) and start correcting the gyro based instead on the gps track. Keep that up until you go n seconds with the magnetometer mostly agreeing with the gps track, and then you can resume gyro updates from magnetometer. As long as you can get good GPS, that will get your autopilot out of a "magnetic trap". It may "fly a little drunk" while it's doing this, but it WILL be staggering its way back home.
DJI, forward this to your autopilot coders and confirm they are falling back to GPS Track in the event it is not agreeing with magnetometer readings. If they don't understand (or tell you I don't know what I'm talking about), feel free to put them in contact with me, as it will really help prevent fly-aways. I may need to teach your whippersnappers how to do compass sensor fusion manually
Or just halt the entire thing. In other words if A or B is not present then halt the drone and notify user. The user then can continue to let it go through the drunk state or manually drive it back home. What scares me is how it just shoots off in a direction that it thinks it needs to making the user be like what the!!! Hey where you going and I think that is the angst that I have. In turn losing the drone because it doesn't know it ends up.magnetic interference will affect the compass but should not affect the GPS. So it would know where to go, but not which direction it's facing. That's what creates the problem - it turns to face home, drives forward, and then discovers it's heading in the wrong direction. Now with sufficient "smarts" it could determine there is a compass problem and adjust course based on its current "track", but I have yet to see any programmer think of this and write their software to adjust for it, which is a bit depressing. (I'm a coder) What's more likely to happen is as it moves, the magnetic interference will go away or at least change and it will get different (and hopefully correct) compass bearings and adjust and head home. If it can avoid falling back into the same compass trap it was in earlier, you'll be fine. (it may make a large wide detour around the area of interference) Otherwise it might just make several short scoots around in the area as it struggles to find its way home, possibly getting stuck. The best answer to this is "GPS Track".
For anyone thinking of coding for this, what you do is when you notice track is significantly differing from course, you stop correcting the gyro from the magnetometer, (do NOT disable accelerometer) and start correcting the gyro based instead on the gps track. Keep that up until you go n seconds with the magnetometer mostly agreeing with the gps track, and then you can resume gyro updates from magnetometer. As long as you can get good GPS, that will get your autopilot out of a "magnetic trap". It may "fly a little drunk" while it's doing this, but it WILL be staggering its way back home.
DJI, forward this to your autopilot coders and confirm they are falling back to GPS Track in the event it is not agreeing with magnetometer readings. If they don't understand (or tell you I don't know what I'm talking about), feel free to put them in contact with me, as it will really help prevent fly-aways. I may need to teach your whippersnappers how to do compass sensor fusion manually
On a side note I watched several YouTube videos where people would fly it near a beach or body of water and I wonder if anyone ever experience it fly away...away from land and to the sea. I don't know but you get my drift. No pun intended.
Virtual1
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Well there's several reasons for it to be in RTH mode, you have to try for best behavior under many circumstances, including fun ones like "no signal from remote and over a body of water", where a response like "just hover and wait for conditions to improve" may end poorly. I'd like my RTH to make a good effort to do its job if it's triggered. The big thing that worries me is hitting obstacles on the way back, particularly due to elevation settings. I will be testing my Spark's RTH functionality more this spring, though where I live it's hard to find big open spaces devoid of trees.
Besides setting the home point wrong (or forgetting to update it) I can't picture what conditions would cause it to just take off in a strange direction. GPS isn't usually wrong - it's either there and good or not there at all - magnetic interference won't affect GPS though it may BLOCK it. Otherwise, a programming bug in the autopilot would be my first suspect.
I suspect a lot of that is due to losing GPS lock for some reason. At that point the Spark will rely on its downward-facing camera for XY-position. Over water, with its constantly changing texture, it can't get a lock, and so will be at the whim of the airspeed at whatever elevation you're at. Wind speed can be pretty high over bodies of water even at lower elevations, so you could see your drone drift away at 20mph pretty easily. And I've seen a few panic videos where they fools got way higher than they ought to, and found themselves in winds higher than the top speed of their drone. Again I'd like to see a more intelligent response from the auto-pilot when it sees its in RTH and is either not going to make it home before dead batteries or is LOSING ground trying to get back home, and be smart enough to lose some height to get out of the strong winds at elevation.
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...I agree with this, too.
On tracking devices: ....there are many, many, MANY 2G/3G/GSM waterproof / water resistant mini trackers out there on the market today (with internal mini or micro SIMs) that can keep track of your "attached drone". They'll track your drone anywhere on Earth where cell tower/signals can penetrate (including inside moving vehicles, inside buildings, homes....anywhere where someone who finds a drone may stash it). So, if someone picks up your crashed drone, you can track the drone on it's path to the person's home, work, or anywhere....as long as the tracker battery has sufficient charge...these cost from $19 to about $39 ish, and require an approximate monthly fee of up to $10 (but just activate when you fly; eg. not many will fly drones in the dead of winter in northern climes, so deactivate subscription during that season). Also, if you crash your drone into water (last broadcast Lat/Lon), all bets are off (unless its a pool or fountain you can see to bottom of and can retrieve from LOL).
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Virtual1
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Actually there's a nice water alternative too. GetMeBack or something like that, it's a single-use product designed to be attached to your (often quite expensive) fishing rod. Fairly small and very lightweight. When exposed to water (may take an hour or more) it will release a high visibility floating bobber on an 18ft line that you can see on the water and get out with your boat and pull it up. If you sprung for the extended Spark warranty, you have to have something to send back to DJI, so this I would say is essential to have if you decided to get the extended warranty. They won't cover "it fell in a lake" if you can't recover the wreck from the depths.
The RTH should be smart enough to halt the drone if it is confused. Give the user a chance to either manually fly it back home or to let the drone continue to figure it out.
I just feel like the fly away issues is due to allowing the drone figure it out. Hope for the best and that's that.
I'm curious though. If the drone is in RTH and you see it start to take off in another direction because it lost compass bearing. Can you "pause" or "halt" it in flight? Instead of us freaking out and chasing after it?
Sorry I haven't flown my two drones yet. Still gathering knowledge before taking it for a spin.
