DJI Object Avoidance

[drone dude#]

So quit recently had a very interesting experience during a flight in the lower Fraser valley near beautiful Yale, British Columbia, Canada.

I was out filming the amazing Lower Fraser valley on a perfect sunny afternoon during Highwater. The terrain is very rugged and craggy and there are high mountains surrounding. Of the many flights we did that day the aircraft on this particular flight I’m sure due to the uneven terrain lost contact with the remote while filming a few meters from the water surface and went to return home mode. As I had been changing location while in flight to maintain VLS I was no longer at my home point. Which was now a significant distance away.

I began walking back to the home point fully expecting (ok mostly hoping) to see my P4P which should have been ahead of me gracefully lowering itself to the spot in which this flight began..... but no such luck!
I waited .... while scanning the skies above patiently a thought came crashing through “ I hadn’t updated my RTH altitude from my previous flight. Now it gets interesting ..... a full ten minuets went by and I was sure my P4P had found a watery grave when literally out of the blue my P4P comes into site (never new how much I appreciated hearing that roar of the props until then) and begins to land!
I reestablished a controller link, landed the aircraft and literally ran to the truck to watch the video which had been running the whole time!

The video was perfect complete with awesome footage of the river. I could see when the RTH mode started and watched painfully as my P4P flew up to my preset alt and headed straight for a mountainside .... it was hard to watch the aircraft fly to within a few meters of a cliff and sheer rock face before object avoidance detected the obstacle, the aircraft came to a complete stop then rose about (I’m guessing) 5 meters before moving forward again until encountering another obstacle and the same process played out. This process happened three more times before the aircraft finally was able to entirely avoid the mountainside and fly home.

I can honestly say I don’t rely on the built in safety aspects of my aircraft but OMG I’m very happy they were there and functioned flawlessly!!

 

[Kirby Johnson]

So quit recently had a very interesting experience during a flight in the lower Fraser valley near beautiful Yale, British Columbia, Canada.

I was out filming the amazing Lower Fraser valley on a perfect sunny afternoon during Highwater. The terrain is very rugged and craggy and there are high mountains surrounding. Of the many flights we did that day the aircraft on this particular flight I’m sure due to the uneven terrain lost contact with the remote while filming a few meters from the water surface and went to return home mode. As I had been changing location while in flight to maintain VLS I was no longer at my home point. Which was now a significant distance away.

I began walking back to the home point fully expecting (ok mostly hoping) to see my P4P which should have been ahead of me gracefully lowering itself to the spot in which this flight began..... but no such luck!
I waited .... while scanning the skies above patiently a thought came crashing through “ I hadn’t updated my RTH altitude from my previous flight. Now it gets interesting ..... a full ten minuets went by and I was sure my P4P had found a watery grave when literally out of the blue my P4P comes into site (never new how much I appreciated hearing that roar of the props until then) and begins to land!
I reestablished a controller link, landed the aircraft and literally ran to the truck to watch the video which had been running the whole time!

The video was perfect complete with awesome footage of the river. I could see when the RTH mode started and watched painfully as my P4P flew up to my preset alt and headed straight for a mountainside .... it was hard to watch the aircraft fly to within a few meters of a cliff and sheer rock face before object avoidance detected the obstacle, the aircraft came to a complete stop then rose about (I’m guessing) 5 meters before moving forward again until encountering another obstacle and the same process played out. This process happened three more times before the aircraft finally was able to entirely avoid the mountainside and fly home.

I can honestly say I don’t rely on the built in safety aspects of my aircraft but OMG I’m very happy they were there and functioned flawlessly!!

I have to say...That IS cool. Especially in view of the fact that many times it seems as though features like obstacle avoidance are not well thought out and do more harm than good when you really, positively, for sure, need them to work. Good story. You should give your little bird a reward.

 

[tkflyfisher7]

Pretty crazy and thank goodness for object avoidance. I’d love to see that video if you have a clip of it.