Very Disconcerting During Litchi Waypoint Mission

bsartist · Mar 23, 2017

This is not a bash Litchi thread. I really rely on it so I'm posting to help understand what could be a serious issue regarding something that's not supposed to happen.

One thing that has always given me confidence in waypoint missions is that they keep flying the mission even if signal is lost. It won't be stranded out there. Then this happened:

Flying a fairly short test mission around my house. Just testing POI and gimbal control. I've run it before although this is the first time since I installed the DBS mod. About half way through the mission - at a point where I have seen signal problems before (not sure why. it's not far and it's not over any houses) I am watching the iPhone display and before my eyes I see the top box switch from F-WP to Atti then back to F-WP then to Atti again and back to F-WP again. This all happens within a couple seconds. Then - and this is what bothers me the most - the AC just went into a hover. The green box says F-WP but it's not moving anymore. I move the gimbal to make sure things aren't frozen on my display and the camera moves. So I have full video and data downlink, full RC control but it's just hovering. I got no mission ended callout but then again I don't remember hearing any of my altitude and battery callouts either. Maybe volume was down. Anyhow whenever I've gotten those mission ended callouts the thing still continued the mission.

If I can't get to the bottom of this then I don't know if I can trust sending this on a waypoint mission that might lose signal if it's possible to get stranded out there. Any help analyzing this would be appreciated.

Here is the link to the phantom log viewer:

Phantom Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Here is the airdata (healthy drones) link:

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

I'd be happy to provide any other info as needed.

Bill

Edit, I definitely did not accidentally flick the S1 switch. Oddly enough the phantom log viewer just shows it settling into P-GPS mode. I know for sure I was staring at F-WP in the display after that flip flop happened.

bsartist · Mar 23, 2017

I looked at the CSV file and the flight mode in there is not the same as shown on phantom help log viewer. It goes from F-WP to P-Atti to F-GPS to P-Atti to F-GPS. (Yes, that is F-GPS and *not* P-GPS). Does this thing think I flicked the switch up to the middle and back down?? There is no way I did that without knowing it.

RodPad · Mar 23, 2017

I only looked at the Log Viewer so far, you did initiate the Go-Home?, and how, the app?

Rod

bsartist · Mar 23, 2017

RodPad said:
I only looked at the Log Viewer so far, you did initiate the Go-Home?, and how, the app?

Rod

Yeah I should have included that info. I eventually just toggled S2 to bring it back.

bsartist · Mar 24, 2017

I guess I stumped the band. ;-)

I ran the flight twice and the problem did not repeat, Still doesn't make me feel totally confident. I hate unexplained things.

BryanBTX · Mar 24, 2017

Bsartist are you using Android version?

bsartist · Mar 24, 2017

BryanBTX said:
Bsartist are you using Android version?

No. iOS. My original post mentioned "iPhone display."

BryanBTX · Mar 24, 2017

bsartist said:
No. iOS. My original post mentioned "iPhone display."

Sorry..... I missed that.

bsartist · Mar 24, 2017

BryanBTX said:
Sorry..... I missed that.

Easy to do amidst my verbosity. ;-)

bsartist · Mar 24, 2017

This is getting strange. I ran the mission three more times after changing to straight lines (I am also trying to understand a heading problem with a POI. Now I can't get it go get past a certain area. The first two times it happened in almost the same exact spot. The third time it got a little further but not much. It switches from F-WP to P-Atti to F-GPS, calls out "Mission Ended" and then hovers. It is starting to drizzle so I can't run it again. But three times in a row this happened. I recorded the screen on the second two and will include the link to the video below. Here is the airdata (healthy drones) link:

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

Here is the screen recording (edited for a little brevity and notations added).

p3s_noob · Mar 24, 2017

Strange!

bsartist · Mar 24, 2017

Here is a collage of the sections of the Litchi csv with the coordinates (outlined in blue) of each switch to P-Atti mode. Twilight zone stuff.

RodPad · Mar 24, 2017

Hum, upload / share your mission, I will look at, maybe somebody will see something, I doubt I will.

I was getting a mission ended, motors wouldn't start. Sometimes it would work. I finally figured out the battery was to cold, by trying the Go-app, litchi did not tell me why.

My theory which is probably obvious that Litchi is not reporting the problem.

It's all I got for now, maybe we need to learn how to analyze the .dat files.

Rod

stones · Mar 24, 2017

Is this the latest version of Litchi? 1.15.8?

bsartist · Mar 24, 2017

RodPad said:
Hum, upload / share your mission, I will look at, maybe somebody will see something, I doubt I will.

I was getting a mission ended, motors wouldn't start. Sometimes it would work. I finally figured out the battery was to cold, by trying the Go-app, litchi did not tell me why.

My theory which is probably obvious that Litchi is not reporting the problem.

It's all I got for now, maybe we need to learn how to analyze the .dat files.

Rod

Here is the mission.

Mission Hub - Litchi

It stopped drizzling so I flew it again and it worked. The only thing is that the drone is not facing the POI like it should - heading seems to be off. I wonder if there is some compass interference at that point. But at 300'? Would that even cause this? But the heading is off in a reproducible way. I get no compass errors though.

bsartist · Mar 24, 2017

stones said:
Is this the latest version of Litchi? 1.15.8?

It is 1.15.8

bsartist · Mar 24, 2017

I'm surprised there is no heading data in the litchi log file. Is it stored anywhere else?

stones · Mar 24, 2017

I'm hoping that Litchi doesn't have problems that keep me from updating like with DJI. I haven't updated Go since 3.11 but, always update Litchi.

RodPad · Mar 24, 2017

Sometimes it works, sometimes it just ends mission, with the same mission?
Yes that is a tough one.

"The only thing is that the drone is not facing the POI like it should"
Facing horizontally?
Is it off a lot or just a few degrees?
If your up in the air, not a mission does the reporting heading look correctly?
Meaning close to you in your yard, point it at your garage, does it look like its pointing the same as displayed on the screen map / direction?
To me, that would be the clue for weather it needs a compass calibration.

Your talking about POI 1?

"I'm surprised there is no heading data in the litchi log file. Is it stored anywhere else?"
Your not looking at the instructions for the flight, you looking at the results of the flight, unless I'm missing something.

Rod