Hi there everyone, i have never used a drone before and considering getting this model, however i was interested in the return to home feature, how accurate is it? Can it land on a landing pad? how close does it get to the launch spot?
Question about the return to home feature.
- Thread starter lardplanet
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2015
- Messages
- 70
- Reaction score
- 14
- Age
- 54
If any drone with RTH landed on the original landing pad, I'd be gob-smacked, or put it down to dumb luck.
GPS accuracy is a few metres in general, so pick a spot with about a 6 foot radius in all directions. It may land closer than that, but the accuracy isn't yet good enough to land it back on the pad it left.
GPS accuracy is a few metres in general, so pick a spot with about a 6 foot radius in all directions. It may land closer than that, but the accuracy isn't yet good enough to land it back on the pad it left.
Is there a reason why it isn't exact? GPS? Are there any drones (consumer or enterprise) that are that accurate?
Even the GPS guided bombs used in wars wont hit the exact location and will always have a certain error threshold.
The RTH feature is very good, it isn't meant for you to just fly the drone back automatically and land at the exact spot. Its meant for emergencies when you lose signal or whatever and it can flyback to you. Preventing you from losing you thousand dollar toy
In practise you can trust it to come back to where it marked within a few feet, and it is easy to regain manual control for a precise landing.
A lot of us prefer to hand catch it, as tipping over on less than perfect landing spot is rather easy and can damage the props.
When you take off (e.g. in a field) it's hard enough carefully selecting a reasonably clear and level spot to set it down by hand for launch.
If you have a good clear paved area that should be OK but the auto land can still be a bit bumpy.
A lot of us prefer to hand catch it, as tipping over on less than perfect landing spot is rather easy and can damage the props.
When you take off (e.g. in a field) it's hard enough carefully selecting a reasonably clear and level spot to set it down by hand for launch.
If you have a good clear paved area that should be OK but the auto land can still be a bit bumpy.
I had an unintended RTH experience yesterday when the battery level reached the "RTH level". This happened when the P3 was only about 15m away and I was about to land anyway.
Up it went (to the designated RTH height), then moved about 10 m horizontally and then descended.
This is all the expected behavior. True to form, the P3 intended to land a few meters away from the home position and this was not an ideal landing spot (it would probably have rolled on landing). I was able to nudge it with the controller to land on a suitable place, but how does this RTH thing work exactly:
1. Can you override the control with just the sticks?
2. Does this apply to all the directions (or just the horisontal direction)?
3. Is there a difference between using Litchi (which I did) and the DJI app when it comes to RTH and RTH abort?
4. What is the best way to abort a RTH caused by the battery level (or is this not possible)?
Up it went (to the designated RTH height), then moved about 10 m horizontally and then descended.
This is all the expected behavior. True to form, the P3 intended to land a few meters away from the home position and this was not an ideal landing spot (it would probably have rolled on landing). I was able to nudge it with the controller to land on a suitable place, but how does this RTH thing work exactly:
1. Can you override the control with just the sticks?
2. Does this apply to all the directions (or just the horisontal direction)?
3. Is there a difference between using Litchi (which I did) and the DJI app when it comes to RTH and RTH abort?
4. What is the best way to abort a RTH caused by the battery level (or is this not possible)?
Thanks for all the replies so far everyone, i was interested to know because there is a fully autonomous system called SkyCatch, the drone seems to land in the exact same spot, do they achieve this a different way instead of GPS then?
Example:https://www.skycatch.com/technology
Example:https://www.skycatch.com/technology
There is a receiver in the box that guides the drone. Not hard to see the short comings of that setup! To get decimeter accuracy with gps, you would have to spend thousands and have a base station feeding your drone radio frequencies. The technology is a ways away for this application for this money.
Thank you, thats very interesting, because i'm a hard core newb could you mention some of the downsides of such a setup? Range/power limitations? It seems like it would be handy to make the drone land on a pad. Could you rig it to a phantom/dev kit to make it land in a precise spot?
If the phantom is less then 20m away from home point it will land in place
Meta4
Premium Pilot
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2014
- Messages
- 15,301
- Reaction score
- 9,243
The cost to implement is much more than the need for the feature.
You can do just about anything - at a cost.
Auto-landing on a precise spot is a good gimmick but of little use to most Phantom flyers. Certainly not important enough to pay for.
Return to Home isn't about landing (although it can do that).
It works as well as consumer grade GPS will allow.
RTH is about bring a lost Phantom home after losing connection or before the battery runs out and most users would resume control as soon as the connection is restored because they can drive the Phantom faster than RTH and can choose a better landing spot.
Meta4
Premium Pilot
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2014
- Messages
- 15,301
- Reaction score
- 9,243
The manual is a good place to start. It should answer most of your questions.
RTH is one of the most important aspects to understand in flying your Phantom and the manual has two whole pages on RTH.
Flyers should practise and experiment with RTH so that they understand it and are not surprised when it happens.
Haha... no i dont but i see what you are getting at!You like bombs, don't you, Garrie?
Meta4
Premium Pilot
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2014
- Messages
- 15,301
- Reaction score
- 9,243
If you are asking about survey grade accuracy, it is available at a cost.
Somewhere in the order of $8000 upwards last time I looked and it's not the kind of thing you fit into a toy-sized quadcopter.
That purposely injected scramble was turned off years ago I thought. Are you saying there is still some intensional something or another to make GPS not be accurate?
Similar threads
