Phantom Fly-Aways - Debunking & possible solutions

[DBS]

I created a quick Pen & Paper explanation of what I believe to be the culprit causing Phantom Fly-Aways....

I was looking at an "important" note in the Phantom assistance software and it struck me like a bolt of lightning.... truly an "oh my god... that's it!!" moment...

Please watch the video if you are concerned about losing your new $1300 investment and let's have an intelligent discussion ( or all out argument ) about what can be done to reduce the chances of these occurrences...

This is the settings page I refer to in Phantom assistant software

And this is my explanation of what causes a Flyaway soon after launch... video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ge3GuhEDRM

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ge3GuhEDRM[/youtube]

 

[molsal]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

I think your theory makes a huge amount of sense.So if you get into the flyaway scenario ,a quick 5 flicks of the lefthand switch should in theory halt the drone from its course.

 

[jalpert]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

The argument is, the home position is not being set correctly therefore the Phantom is trying to fly back home, sometimes miles away.

My question is, if you wait for the blinking green, the home position is marked within a few seconds. What about the people flying for minutes, then having it fly away? If it marks an inaccurate home position, you'd think it would fly away with the first 10-15 seconds of the flight constantly.

A nasty bug related to limits or the home position, maybe? But I'm not sure about it actually setting a bad home position right off the bat so I'm not sure your solution would work.

 

[RobFallen]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

Cheers, totally makes sense

 

[DBS]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

I think your theory makes a huge amount of sense.So if you get into the flyaway scenario ,a quick 5 flicks of the lefthand switch should in theory halt the drone from its course.

Well there ya go right there... another possible solution when it's too late and the Flyaway has started already...

Good observation there molsal :ugeek:

 

[davephantom]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

You can confirm that after takeoff using IOC and home lock as well. Might save guessing. But a comparison with cell phones is tricky because of cell tower assist, most readings you see on positions are based on cell towers, not GPS which is slow, difficult to get coverage (often obstructed) and takes considerably more batteries.

 

[davephantom]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

On the initial premise of time to locate on your phone then correcting, note the GPS timing vs cell tower / wifi hotspot timing in this article:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1159528 ... works.html

I don't think this premise of incorrect home spot is accurate. Also, doesn't the app show a warning when outside the limit? Who wants to make a small limit and drag the hovering craft outside of it and see what happens? :shock:

 

[tbenst]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

DBS, thank you so much for making this video and explaining your theory. This sounds plausible for some flyaways! Great to see the community rallying to try to prevent this problem.

In my flyaway, the home location was set correctly as evidenced by "Find my Phantom" showing the takeoff location exactly. It might still be possible for GPS teleporting to explain why the failsafe did not work in my case (e.g. it's GPS current position was wrong, while the home location was correct).

I think it's important that we as a community figure out the best response for people who are experiencing a flyaway. You only have a few seconds to react. It seems that switching to Attitude mode has worked for some people. Would be curious to hear people's thoughts about the best course of action.

 

[Didjelirium]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

I'm still a noob when it comes to the theory about gps and drone subtle electrical consciousness, but that does make a lot of sense sir. I deffo need to switch to NazaM now, considering i'm lacking all those vital functions by sticking to the phantom mode, and i will try to get this new 'switch the s2' reflex if ever I notice the bird flying somewhere i'm not telling it to go, in the hope marking a new home position will stop its freedom frenzy. That and walking around with it first before taking off to make sure it pinpoints the correct location. What's 5 more minutes of patience if it allows for numerous safe flights ?

Thanks a lot for sharing your analysis, it can probably reassure many worried flyers, new and old. I know i am.

Bless !

 

[MikesTooLz]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

This is exactly why I enabled NAZA mode and test my home location before each flight by flying about 20 feet off and switching S1 all the way down to make sure it comes home correctly, if not I can switch out of RTM and bring it back down.

 

[wobble1]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

Excellent theory. Another simple "fix" or check that DJI could implement is when your home position is marked, a map could pop up in the app showing where the home position was marked

Edit: I guess you could check the "Find my Phantom" function right after the home position is locked as well.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[4wd]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

This is exactly why I enabled NAZA mode and test my home location before each flight by flying about 20 feet off and switching S1 all the way down to make sure it comes home correctly, if not I can switch out of RTM and bring it back down.

That may be a typo, but you can test it knows home on S2 by trying homelock.
If it behaves unexpectedly you can reset it to where it is hovering now.

 

[DBS]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

This is exactly why I enabled NAZA mode and test my home location before each flight by flying about 20 feet off and switching S1 all the way down to make sure it comes home correctly, if not I can switch out of RTM and bring it back down.

That may be a typo, but you can test it knows home on S2 by trying homelock.
If it behaves unexpectedly you can reset it to where it is hovering now.

Both correct... you can enable NAZA mode... set S1 bottom position to RTH and test that way... or enable IOC and test with S2 as 4wd mentioned...

Only problem is ... if your home position is wildly inaccurate.... you need a way out of that RTZ (return to zone) scenario.... 5 quick flips on S2 will reset the home position to where the drone is currently.

 

[srandall25]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

This is exactly why I enabled NAZA mode and test my home location before each flight by flying about 20 feet off and switching S1 all the way down to make sure it comes home correctly, if not I can switch out of RTM and bring it back down.

According to DBS's explanation, your method would already be too late. If your home location wasn't correct to begin with, then once you started your 20 ft 'test', you would have a flyaway and switching to any other mode wouldn't change anything... again, according to DBS's explanation.

 

[BlackTracer]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

Doesn't the little icon in the lower left corner show you aircraft position WRT home position? I would think if the home position it has and the current GPS location it has are too far apart you could see it there? If they were way off I think the red pointer would be far away from center (or not there at all), especially if the OPs scenario of miles away were happening. Possibly checking this after home position greens are seen could give you a heads up. Anyone know more about this?

BTW I have recently adopted Toolz method of an S1 down briefly after takeoff to see that it knows where to RTH.

EDIT: Agreed it would be too late according to OPs scenario. Oh well I feel better after doing it anyways. Maybe a waste of time.

2nd EDIT: Once upon a time clicking on the icon would bring up a nice big version of it on the screen. Does it still do that? I haven't checked but will.

 

[srandall25]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

It appears the easiest software solution would be for the DJI Vision app to provide you what the home location point is once it's established. This could be provided in the "Find My Phantom" feature. Is there any reason to believe that there is a relation to the current location in the "Find My Phantom" feature and the home location recorded? In other words, once I see the green lights on the Phantom indicating a successful home lock, can I simply observe the blue dot (current location) in the 'Find My Phantom' feature and verify the home location to be correct? If the answer is we don't know, then I believe this would be a nice feature request to DJI. Make the home point (that is recorded) a 'green dot' or something more evident in the map that says here is the current home location that is recorded in your phantom...

 

[DBS]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

Doesn't the little icon in the lower left corner show you aircraft position WRT home position? I would think if the home position it has and the current GPS location it has are too far apart you could see it there? If they were way off I think the red pointer would be far away from center (or not there at all), especially if the OPs scenario of miles away were happening. Possibly checking this after home position greens are seen could give you a heads up. Anyone know more about this?

The orientation icon would show as normal in this situation... All it knows is , where home position is, and where drone is... so before takeoff everything would appear normal.. With an incorrect drone sitting on top of an incorrect home position...

After the drone takes off and things go haywire... THEN I would expect to see some weirdness in the icon... As now it knows where the drone really is and still has the same incorrect home position stored on launch.

 

[Jayson Hanes]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

hmm.. when you fly beyond the limit the app tells you very clearly..

 

[DBS]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

I wonder if the range limiter has the same type of pop up.... and I wonder how many people have stopped to read what's on the screen as their thousand dollars is booking it for the trees... be interesting to see more people who have had flyaways chime in and tell if they noticed any unusual warning as it was happening.

 

[Jayson Hanes]

Re: Phantom Fly-Aways debunked & possible solutions

that is a result of the range limiter.. I had upped the max altitude to 2000 feet