First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limits

[XL-Studios]

Today I took my precious P2V for a test flight over the capitol of Estonia, Tallinn with the new 3.0 firmware including no-fly limits.
This town has a city airport so I was worried that the limits would ruin my summer plans for great areal filming of this beautiful city.
According to my calculations the limits set by the no-fly restrictions would be around 60-70m. This are my conclusions.

1. I could actually go up to 190m (Not 60-70m) before it started to descent slowly and the FPV screen said GOING HOME.
2. During the descent I could control the Phantom in every way except gaining altitude.
3. At about 65m the descent stopped and everything was normal. The GOING HOME message went off.
4. I could then make another altitude run with similar result as before.
5. Seems that the altitude is counting from 0m at take of not altitude over sea level. (Great relief for those on a hill)
6. Generally the Phantom behaved as expected and I did not find any anomalies in the flying at all exempt for the forced descent.

Conclussions
The No-Fly limitation worked kind of gently. It´s probably a good idea to safely establish your max heigh before goin over high structures in case it start to do a forced descent and you need to fly home. Om the other hand you can make a altitude run upp to some no-fly altitude +150m and then it will take a minute or two before it is down to the no-fly limit again.

I think it totally sucks like hell that DJI is crippling of our loved Phantoms. Customer satisfaction is obviously not in their first interest.
This said it kind of works gently and did not mess my up flight totally.

EDIT: The no-fly forced descent can be seen here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lgtzplwijqu02 ... intest.mov
(Raw footage)

 

[kydan]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Good to hear a first-hand account of how that implementation actually works.

Very interesting...

 

[pault]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Thanks for the report

A couple of questions;

Is Tallinn a category a or b airport ?
How far away were you from the center of the airport circle on the DJI map ?

Thanks

 

[evilfurryone]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Tallinn is cat A, because it's an international one. Though it's pretty small. Sadly the restriction covers the whole central and old town. There are some quite nice locations to shoot in that radius.

5 mile zone around airport.
http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-...56781006&r=8&lc=FFFFFF&lw=1&fc=00FF00&fs=true

This should be the no-liftoff zone of ca 1.5miles

http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-...781006&r=2.4&lc=FFFFFF&lw=1&fc=00FF00&fs=true

xl can comment on where he flew it.

 

[XL-Studios]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Thanks for the report

A couple of questions;

Is Tallinn a category a or b airport ?
How far away were you from the center of the airport circle on the DJI map ?

Thanks

It´s a category A airport
I was exactly 5,6km/3,5miles

 

[gpauk]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

5. Seems that the altitude is counting from 0m at take of not altitude over sea level. (Great relief for those on a hill)

Interesting. If that's the case, you can probably fly whatever height you want -- fly to the limit, reset the home point.. Continue...

 

[neiloakley]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Interesting. If that's the case, you can probably fly whatever height you want -- fly to the limit, reset the home point.. Continue...

Risky :shock:

Plus I would have expected DJI to think of that upfront, and it recored take off altitude seperate to homepoint altitude.

 

[XL-Studios]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

5. Seems that the altitude is counting from 0m at take of not altitude over sea level. (Great relief for those on a hill)

Interesting. If that's the case, you can probably fly whatever height you want -- fly to the limit, reset the home point.. Continue...

This seem to be the situation yes. I did another altitude run from a different location 3,5km from the center of the no-fly zone. I took off from a 13m high roof and the home point was anyway 0m.

How to reset the home point while in the air?

 

[gpauk]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Same way as you do on the ground I assume... Flip the ioc switch from off to home lock 5 or 6 times...

 

[ericdes]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

DJI is implementing this feature for legal issues. There is no other reason to do so. We are not aware of all the implications and talks they have gone through so far. The Phantom is the most sold quad in the world so it makes sense it is first to get this "feature".

I am expecting all quads in the future to have all sorts of failsafe features imposed by our lovely governments, Height, speed, locations, etc...

If it has GPS, well they can do all this.

 

[CRankin]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

DJI is implementing this feature for legal issues. There is no other reason to do so. We are not aware of all the implications and talks they have gone through so far. The Phantom is the most sold quad in the world so it makes sense it is first to get this "feature".

I am expecting all quads in the future to have all sorts of failsafe features imposed by our lovely governments, Height, speed, locations, etc...

If it has GPS, well they can do all this.

Then DJI should be completely transparent with its customers and state that they are being forced to do this - call out the governments and particular agencies that are hell-bent on ruining hobbies and businesses for no good reason whatsoever.

As for other quads, they may come with this enabled in the future... but many are potentially more hackable, are they not? My understanding is that 3DR's Pixhawk control system is open source - which potentially means that what one company puts in, enterprising individuals can remove. I'd be willing to pay someone to remove these types of unnecessary restrictions.

 

[rustysd]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Today I took my precious P2V for a test flight over the capitol of Estonia, Tallinn with the new 3.0 firmware including no-fly limits.
This town has a city airport so I was worried that the limits would ruin my summer plans for great areal filming of this beautiful city.
According to my calculations the limits set by the no-fly restrictions would be around 60-70m. This are my conclusions.

1. I could actually go up to 190m (Not 60-70m) before it started to descent slowly and the FPV screen said GOING HOME.
2. During the descent I could control the Phantom in every way except gaining altitude.
3. At about 65m the descent stopped and everything was normal. The GOING HOME message went off.
4. I could then make another altitude run with similar result as before.
5. Seems that the altitude is counting from 0m at take of not altitude over sea level. (Great relief for those on a hill)
6. Generally the Phantom behaved as expected and I did not find any anomalies in the flying at all exempt for the forced descent.

Conclussions
The No-Fly limitation worked kind of gently. It´s probably a good idea to safely establish your max heigh before goin over high structures in case it start to do a forced descent and you need to fly home. Om the other hand you can make a altitude run upp to some no-fly altitude +150m and then it will take a minute or two before it is down to the no-fly limit again.

I think it totally sucks like hell that DJI is crippling of our loved Phantoms. Customer satisfaction is obviously not in their first interest.
This said it kind of works gently and did not mess my up flight totally.

EDIT: The no-fly forced descent can be seen here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lgtzplwijqu02 ... intest.mov
(Raw footage)

So you can be in the "red" area of the ma and still fly to over 100 meters? That's pretty good and a relief considering that all of San Diego where I live is a no-fly zone.

 

[shaunmed]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

easy fix. dont upgrade to v3.0

 

[ianwood]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

I highly doubt DJI was forced to do this. I am not aware of laws requiring GPS enabled UAVs to enforce no-fly zones. Except for China ironically, where the government says "jump!" and you are expected to say "how high?" regardless of whether or not there is an applicable law. For all other territories, this was a pre-emptive self-enforcement measure to be more compatible with ICAO airspace guidelines.

As for the height of the Phantom, it will always be relative to the home location. The Phantom has no idea how far below it the sea is unless you give it an Internet connection to get the local pressure.

 

[sar104]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

I highly doubt DJI was forced to do this. I am not aware of laws requiring GPS enabled UAVs to enforce no-fly zones. Except for China ironically, where the government says "jump!" and you are expected to say "how high?" regardless of whether or not there is an applicable law. For all other territories, this was a pre-emptive self-enforcement measure to be more compatible with ICAO airspace guidelines.

As for the height of the Phantom, it will always be relative to the home location. The Phantom has no idea how far below it the sea is unless you give it an Internet connection to get the local pressure.

Assuming a 3D fix it will know its absolute elevation/altitude from the GPS data.

 

[ianwood]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Assuming a 3D fix it will know its absolute elevation/altitude from the GPS data.

It's an interesting point and maybe the flight restrictions are imposed by comparing a GPS 3D fix to a position on a conical shape. But, the vertical component of GPS is not very precise compared to relative barometric pressure. And from what I understand, the Naza uses only barometric pressure for vertical stability and relative vertical position. So maybe, it's altitude MSL of the home point plus barometric difference compared to the altitude of a point on a conical shape.

 

[sar104]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Assuming a 3D fix it will know its absolute elevation/altitude from the GPS data.

It's an interesting point and maybe the flight restrictions are imposed by comparing a GPS 3D fix to a position on a conical shape. But, the vertical component of GPS is not very precise compared to relative barometric pressure. And from what I understand, the Naza uses only barometric pressure for vertical stability and relative vertical position. So maybe, it's altitude MSL of the home point plus barometric difference compared to the altitude of a point on a conical shape.

With WAAS enabled reception and a clear view of the satellites the elevation should be within 10 m. Close enough for restricted airspace purposes I would think.

 

[hjscm]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Why can't the new restrictions work like the height and distance in assistant software. get to no flyzone and it hits a barrier and can't go any farther instead of landing.

 

[Mori55]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Does it get it coordinates right form the gps sats ? If you have a ipad without GPS , just wifi why doesn't google maps work if the quad knows where it at ?

 

[sar104]

Re: First experience with Phantom 2 vision v3.0 No-Fly limit

Does it get it coordinates right form the gps sats ? If you have a ipad without GPS , just wifi why doesn't google maps work if the quad knows where it at ?

The Phantom gets its position from its own GPS unit. It isn't acting as an external GPS unit for the non-GPS iPad, so the iPad location services are still blind. And Google Maps primarily needs a data link (wifi or cellular) just to display the maps, it only needs a GPS unit additionally to identify location on the map.