Here is how to eliminate one possible Flyaway Cause

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

Watch this video that someone made explaining exactly what I had been thinking could have been the cause of a few of the flyaways that are not due to user error. After watching the video, here is my added 2 cents on how to know exactly where the home location will be set to when taking off each time.




Here is a solution.

#1 When loading the Vision mobile app, instead of going to camera view, go to Find My Phantom.

#2 As you phantom starts searching for satellites and locating itself you should see on the map where exactly the phantom thinks it is via its GPS.

#3 Only take off if the phantom lights indicate that it has GPS lock and also that the phantoms location on the map is correct and accurate.

By verifying on the Find My Phantom Map you will know exactly where the home location will be set at takeoff.
 
Wow, that makes more sense than anything else I've read or seen on this forum. Thank you!
 
MikesTooLz said:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ge3GuhEDRM[/youtube]

Watch this video that someone made explaining exactly what I had been thinking could have been the cause of a few of the flyaways that are not due to user error. After watching the video, here is my added 2 cents on how to know exactly where the home location will be set to when taking off each time.




Here is a solution.

#1 When loading the Vision mobile app, instead of going to camera view, go to Find My Phantom.

#2 As you phantom starts searching for satellites and locating itself you should see on the map where exactly the phantom thinks it is via its GPS.

#3 Only take off if the phantom lights indicate that it has GPS lock and also that the phantoms location on the map is correct and accurate.

By verifying on the Find My Phantom Map you will know exactly where the home location will be set at takeoff.


very well explained and very plausible however


keep in mind this only really applies to ver 2.0 and higher as before that there was not cone limits set

A RTH would encounter this problem though if activated as home location would be wrong
but in that case a simple switch from gps to atti should stop it if within controller range
 
MikesTooLz said:
#2 As you phantom starts searching for satellites and locating itself you should see on the map where exactly the phantom thinks it is via its GPS.

When the app is connected to Phantom WiFi, how it can get the map from internet? Which app version you have tried this? iOS or Android?
 
This guy is missing an essential point. The inaccurate location he talks about at the start only occurs when the GPS receiver has contact with only a few satellites. Since Home Point is only set by the Phantom when it receives data from 6 or more satellites for 10 seconds by that time position will be accurate and a correct HP will be set.

Only if people don't wait until HP is set and take off too soon they run the risk of an old HP from a previous flight still being in memory and being the spot the Phantom flies to. This will indeed happen more often when the geofence is also set because then it will occur even when controller contact isn't lost but it should be possible to resolve this by switching to Atti mode (in NAZA mode?) because in Atti the geofence is ignored. Only the height ceiling remains active in Atti.

I don't think the different models behave differently regarding this.
 
I'm not buying it. He used the words "standard glitch in commercial GPS products". Is he kidding? An inaccurate home location is just a glitch that we all live with? I think not. The reason your cell phone jumps from one location to another when you start it up is because it hasn't yet determined your location. When it does, it jumps.
 
His observation is valid though that IF an invalid HP is set for whatever reason AND the geofence is also active AND you are outside the border of that geofence of that invalid HP THEN this will result in a 'flyaway' even though the Phantom is otherwise performing just the way it is supposed to be.

It therefore will indeed be useful if DJI would implement a check whether the HP and/or a geofence border it wants to fly towards is indeed at a realistic distance or not. A similar feature to RAP which also caters for unlikely/unrealistic situations.
 
MikesTooLz said:
Here is a solution.

#1 When loading the Vision mobile app, instead of going to camera view, go to Find My Phantom.

#2 As you phantom starts searching for satellites and locating itself you should see on the map where exactly the phantom thinks it is via its GPS.

#3 Only take off if the phantom lights indicate that it has GPS lock and also that the phantoms location on the map is correct and accurate.

By verifying on the Find My Phantom Map you will know exactly where the home location will be set at takeoff.
This has worked well for me. If you take off with the Find My Phantom screen on instead of the camera, the FMP screen updates live and you can watch the location change as the Phantom moves. This is further assurance you have a good home location. If you happen to take off from the same location time after time, this feature allows you to verify you're not looking at a cached image.
 
A few things that come to mind to help prevent flyaway's.... I think DJI could do either of these if they wanted to:

1. Don't allow the phantom to arm until GPS lock is obtained (make it user configurable for those that don't fly GPS hold).

2. If the home point is further than a user specified distance (ie 1 mile, 2 mile +) then land or send a signal to the controller to let the person flying know there is an issue with the home point, just don't start flying towards this new location 800 miles away.

3. Allow S2 to be configurable (manual mode, auto land, etc) with a higher priority than S1 so if it starts flying away you put S2 all the way down and it is told LAND!!!!!! or go into Manual Mode.

Just a few thoughts.
 
Just wondering how it loads the map on your phone when connected to the phantom's wifi. Do you have to preload before you fly or does the iphone get the map data through mobile network?
 
It seems to log the position when the phantom was last turned on.
If you have no wifi or data available, you can view the location on a map overlay when you get home.

It seems reasonably accurate but the map is not very detailed zoomed in.
It would be nice to be able to switch to satellite view.
 
He makes sound very plausible but I have a few comments.
1/ I've had GPS equipment for at least 20 years (well before cel phones had GPS) I had navigation equipment that I used all the time and never once have I had a reading that was more than a few yards away from the correct place.
2/ that is until I got my Phantom a couple of weeks ago. I was having trouble making contact with it because my Iphone would not find the phantoms network it would always get my home network ( until I told it to ignore that network and then it saw the phantom) but while I was trying to find the phantom's network I clicked on "FIND MY PHANTOM" thinking at the time that it meant FIND THE PHANTOM's NETWOK. I was surprised when it showed the Phantom as being a few hundred miles off the coast of GHANA.
I live 70 miles north of Seattle. Thinking about it I believe that this was due to me doing this indoors with no GPS lock. I did this several times and always the same location came up, even when done several days apart.
3/ this tells me that my phantom has a built in error that until it has a solid GPS lock it accepts as it's position. If this is the case there are a number of ways that dji can fix it plus one way that we can do the job.we can also make sure that this is not a problem.
4/ dji can modify the software to not let it take off until it has enough satellites, take the option of earlier flight away.
5/ we can check if it has the correct home position by doing a quick "RETURN HOME" exercise before carrying on with what ever flight plan we had in mind.p
 
Something tells me that a lucky boat off the coast of Ghana is having fun collecting a bunch of phantoms...

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
golgotha said:
Something tells me that a lucky boat off the coast of Ghana is having fun collecting a bunch of phantoms...

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


Now that's funny!
 

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