Drone stopped mid-flight. Why?
Hey everyone,
My drone just stopped in the northeast corner (close to boundary point AI in the picture) where it's supposed to cut over to boundary point N. I tried stopping and restarting the mission and going back home, retrying, multiple times and no dice. Is there a way to set markers within the flight path so I could manually start at a different point (say boundary point N) if this happens again?
This is pertaining to the following flight path - Barry Houldsworth. Barry you've been really helpful so calling you in if you have any advice. I believe I captured some good imagery, but I was unable to complete the grid path.
Thanks everyone!
Comments
8 comments
Only thing I see is it’s about 22 minutes into flight at that location. I would think it should RTH for a battery swap close to that time. Not sure why it would not return somewhere around there. What is the flight time you get when a battery swap is needed with your M2P. If this is about where it should return then the question still remains, why didn’t it RTH. Also at that altitude is your DJI app set to higher then 400’. If it did go higher then the max altitude setting in the DJI app it still should have indicated a message of maximum altitude reached during the plan. Since using AGL I don’t know what the actual ATL altitude was from take-off location. It could be going higher then the max ATL? Just some thoughts. Did the app give any kind of message ?
Hey Mike, battery life is advertised at 31 mins but it's definitely less than that because I change out about 30%. I changed batteries before it got to this point probably around 18 min mark. I don't think I have my DJI app set to higher than 400' but it's set above that in Dronelink and it's already gone above this earlier in the flight. The northwest part of the unit is the highest elevation so at the point that the drone stopped, it's at the lowest elevation in the unit. The app gave me a message the first time and then i changed it and did not receive any error messages. Here's a topo map to give you an idea of altitude at take-off (takeoff is the botany skip).
It's hard to say without looking at the logs and seeing what error message was displayed. Usually, the message gives a good clue and, if not, uploading to something like Airdata will provide the ability to analyze the flight.
However, I did notice that at that point the drone climbs to just over 500ft.
If you didn't set the max altitude above the usual 400ft approx, then this is the most likely scenario causing the mission to stop. There is nothing in the plan that changes that so it will be whatever was set in the DJI app that carries over. Remember that it is ATL (above take off) that matters.
The DL app max altitude command will only “limit” it from flying no higher then what you set it. It’s not a max altitude setting like in the DJI App. Example: If you set the DJI App to let’s say 1’000’ max a DL command will just limit it from flying higher then what you put in it below or up to that altitude. The DJI app Max altitude setting is what needs to be higher then you will fly. The DJI app settings stick across apps so DL cannot not fly higher the the 400’ which what you say it’s set to. I’ve needed to do this where I fly in a forest area where the elevation increases to about 600 feet higher then my take-off location while staying at 65 ‘ AGL. As Barry stated and I mentioned the ATL is what matters which indicates higher we so believe that was your issue. I’d just set the DJI app to max altitude in your situation or at least about 600’. They are two very different things. One is the max Altitude it will go and one is a limit up to that max setting. Also the map doesn’t really matter. The drones actual altitude from the take-off location as indicated in the DL app is what you should look at when this happens. The drones altitude reading is always ATL, above take-off location as indicated in the app. That’s why I would set the DJI App to at least 600’ maybe more so you won’t need to worry about the issue. You can still put a max altitude command in the plan either the same as DJI app max altitude or at any altitude below it. Hope this helps.
On one occasion, I had a mission that would repeatedly stop with a "maximum altitude reached" message, even though I was well below the maximums I had set. I eventually determined it was because it was trying to exceed the 150' maximum altitude set because I was a few miles off the end of a small airport runway. The drone itself enforces those restrictions.
Barry Houldsworth Roger Harris
I tried again with the same results. I went into DJI Fly, made sure the drone was up-to-date with firmware, increased maximum allowable altitude to 1600 ft and the drone stopped at the same point. After about a minute I got an error message saying that it was off-course... resumed flight and the drone adjusted but did not proceed. I manually increased the altitude to see if it would do anything but nothing. I tried to do a flight at 400 ft and terrain follow without grid path and it worked fine. There are no flight restrictions in this area.
Off course can be difficult to correct mid mission. From my own experience the off course value is set but the drone may continue to move until it stops and may shift due to wind so you may need to guess a little until you adjust the altitude to continue when you get it right you can continue the mission. Just keep track of the adjustments until you figure out if you're moving closer. The other way is to abort the mission and make plan changes to reduce the likelihood of being off course.
I had it stop at 400’ once on a plan and it was set to the max 1640 feet. After talking to Jim we could not see why it would not work. Sometimes for unknown reasons technology fails. I did a full firmware refresh with PC software using DJI Assistant 2 on both drone and controller. Calibrated the IMU and compass. Deleted the DJI and DL app. Reinstalled both apps and flew the same mission which worked flawlessly. Since then I’ve flown at least a couple similar plans in same Forest area with elevation change up to about 500 to 700 feet ATL. I’m fairly sure this is a DJI issue, not DL since the max altitudes is set by the DJI software. Maybe try what I did and see if that works. It can’t hurt and eliminates most possibilities. As for the off-course message, Here is a link with some possible explanations which may help. Just some info which may or may not help but this is not a normal issues.
https://support.dronelink.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052533153-Why-does-the-drone-fly-off-course-or-make-jerky-movements-during-certain-mission-plans-
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