Emergency shut down in flight

[Eagle's Eye Photo]

This is all IHMO, YMMV and I do not suggest anyone ever attempt this at home... Demonstrated on a closed road, with a professional driver... I am not responsible for any decapitations that may occur.

When you attempt to hand catch any UAV, one thing you always want to do is keep your catching hand as high as possible with an upstreched arm, to provide as much clearance as you can. Specific to the Evo II you need to orient the aircraft while it is facing you, so that those props that are higher in the front, are the ones closest to you. It is counter-intuitive to be grabbing just behind the gimbal, but it is the safer choice. You want as much distance from those rear props as possible.

Every video I have seen on hand catching the Evo II shows that you want the aircraft to gently drop into your hand. Barely grab it in one hand, engage both sticks inward to kill the motors. (It really helps if you have a neck strap, so you can only concentrate on the sticks and not holding the controller, as well.)

Any movement of the aircraft while holding, will cause the motors to spin back up, as the IMU senses that movement and knows the Evo II is not on Terra Firma. Finally, if the aircraft is fighting you... rather than risk injury to yourself or others... LET GO, gain some height and re-assess your options.

It also would be awful that I might suggest, that if this to be attempted... that one practice this in non-emergency situations, so that when it is necessary... panic and lack of previous practice do not increase the personal risk to yourself.

 

[MattMPA]

Older thread, but it came up when I was searching for an emergency shutdown of my Evo Pro. I was flying around my house, lots of trees everywhere, so it was a very careful flight, in/out/around the trees, never more than about 30' off the ground.

I couldn't land (dogs were going to grab it) so I flew it up to where I could reach up and grab it. When I had hold of it, I pulled the left rudder full down, expecting it to turn the props off. That didn't happen. The drone went crazy and with full power on, it would have headed straight into the trees for a dreadful crash.

I tried everything to get it to stop, but nothing worked. I tried to pull the battery out but all I managed to do was to cut my fingers on the spinning props. Yes, I'm bleeding like a stuck pig.

I finally stuck it into some shrubs to get it to stop.

So yes, and emergency shutdown would have been very useful.

What a crazy thing! I've hand-caught mine a couple times, like my Mini. I have since decided it's better that I don't do this.

When I did...I simply put my hand underneath....and held the stick down. It shut off. I think trying to hold it against it's trying to fly would make it pull very hard...

 

[RedDragon]

A quick option to stop the motors is also useful for landing on moving or unstable platforms (e.g. boat, flatbed truck). My DJI Matrice 600 pro uses left stick down and in and power button to kill the props instead of waiting 3 seconds with left stick down. This was critical in being able to land on a small boat for research. I'm now trying to do this with Evo II and will be trying to kill the props mid flight to drop into a net or during hand catch (motorcycle gloves recommended for hand catching!).

 

[uas_gian]

A rare but quite similar situation happened to us using the Evo II pro.

On the first low battery warning the aircraft was under a roof over water doing a slow sideways fly through of a structure. At 30% the low battery alarm sounded, so the plan was to finish the move and land on pavement. That seemed safer than flying all the way back. What I didn't know, was that someone else had set the critical low level to 25% where I usually have it at 15%. So before the drone was clear to land or gain altitude the RTH function unexpectedly kicked-in. when i realised it wanted to go up into the roof, i could press down to keep it hovering only.

Overwhelmed by the unexpected behaviour and with no other options to think of an assistant could get to the hovering drone and carefully grab it by the belly (without cutting his fingers) but when pressing the power button on the battery didn't turn off the aircraft as expected he became a hero. Power down manually must at least be possible at all times. The result was, he walked away pulling the resisting drone over his head to an open space. where I could reset the home point and let it finish it's RTH. To my opinion an emergency power down should be both possible manually on the aircraft and also remotely on the RC by pressing 3 designated buttons for 3 seconds you normally will never combine.

E.g. home, pause and auto-take-off all together could initialise the engine stop and the confirmation of this after audio signal to execute it in mid air is then done by both sticks inward, this procedure should be auto canceled by any move or button other than both sticks inward In case you really accidentally pressed those buttons simultaneously or in case the emergency was a false alarm. This procedure could easily be achieved by left and right handed pilots.

PS: A parachute option as customised attachment is mandatory in some cases in Europe to get clearance for some drone operations. For a parachute deployment also the mid air engine stop should be made possible.

The Evo II offers a novice mode from the box but is still missing that advanced pro mode. We are pro users we make movies, we have a good insurance, pilots should get pro features when pilots know what the risks are.

 

[RedDragon]

For future situations like this, your catcher could simply flip the drone past 90 degrees vertical. That is, point the nose of the drone straight toward the ground. It will fight the move, but will immediately shut down the motors once past 90 degrees. The drone doesn't pull too hard even at full power and we were able to keep a grip on it fairly easily. We had to do this when hand caching on a moving, rocking boat as waiting multiple seconds with left stick down was not consistently shutting down the motors. A kill command would be much safer, but someone with a reasonably strong grip should have no problem with this. We wore helmets with face shields and leather gloves to prevent injury.

 

[uas_gian]

For future situations like this, your catcher could simply flip the drone past 90 degrees vertical. That is, point the nose of the drone straight toward the ground. It will fight the move, but will immediately shut down the motors once past 90 degrees. The drone doesn't pull too hard even at full power and we were able to keep a grip on it fairly easily. We had to do this when hand caching on a moving, rocking boat as waiting multiple seconds with left stick down was not consistently shutting down the motors. A kill command would be much safer, but someone with a reasonably strong grip should have no problem with this. We wore helmets with face shields and leather gloves to prevent injury.

Is this also working on the Autel drones? So far I have found news about the 90 degree angle to stop rotors only to be a DJI feature. I hope to never have to apply it, but sure will try this option should we ever again have to hand catch our Evo II. Or should we get some motorcycle gloves in order to teach everyone on our team how to do it

 

[RedDragon]

Is this also working on the Autel drones? So far I have found news about the 90 degree angle to stop rotors only to be a DJI feature. I hope to never have to apply it, but sure will try this option should we ever again have to hand catch our Evo II. Or should we get some motorcycle gloves in order to teach everyone on our team how to do it

I can confirm that this works for the EVO II 8k. Haven't tried with other products. We used the method regularly (10+ times per day) during field sampling. And, yes, the motorcycle gloves may seem like overkill, but they do make you look pretty rad. With the safety helmet, it all ends up looking a bit Mad Max.

 

[GeoDrone SRL]

Catching the drone and flipping it will trigger emergency Stop.
Also both sticks down and towards inside.
So what more do you want in order to stop the drone in air? A button that can be touched by accident and smash your drone?
Read manual folks...you have the emergency stop...also for parachutes go to some streets at night, will find some....as for drone is pointless to add a parachute, as probably under 1% of drones crashes because of components fault...In rest is taking forced landings or smash as operator errors and skip of safety checks...

Cheers.

 

[uas_gian]

Catching the drone and flipping it will trigger emergency Stop.
Also both sticks down and towards inside.
So what more do you want in order to stop the drone in air? A button that can be touched by accident and smash your drone?
Read manual folks...you have the emergency stop...also for parachutes go to some streets at night, will find some....as for drone is pointless to add a parachute, as probably under 1% of drones crashes because of components fault...In rest is taking forced landings or smash as operator errors and skip of safety checks...

Cheers.

I can tell: both sticks down and towards inside after hand catching did NOT turn off the engines. Flipping it forward nose down as suggested by RedDragon was not attempted by the catcher.

A parachute on a relatively small drone may seem useless in the field, but law and order wants this in certain cases, for example when flying over crowds. In such cases the actual risks be it 1%, 2% or 9% are not the point of discussion. It is in those cases only about what is required to comply with regulations to get a permission to fly.

@GeoDrone, sorry for pointing this out, but you have falsely quoted "A button that can be touched by accident and smash your drone?" that is not what has been suggested and this is not adding to a constructive discussion. I wrote about a specific order of multiple buttons and an audio warning to go in between before being able to get into an emergency mid air engine stop. The constructive discussion I aim for is: shouldn't such pro features as a "operator-really-really-really-knows-the-risks" be possible to get unlocked in the software?

 

[GeoDrone SRL]

You did not performed correctly the emergency stop from joysticks. Toggle it as told and there will be a Stop. It is working as i always hand catch it and force Stop... But you need to keep joystick 2-3 secs in that position

 

[RedDragon]

You did not performed correctly the emergency stop from joysticks. Toggle it as told and there will be a Stop. It is working as i always hand catch it and force Stop... But you need to keep joystick 2-3 secs in that position

Down and in on the joysticks for 2-3 seconds is fine if you are catching on solid ground and the drone is not detecting movement, but if you are on a drifting, rocking boat, it doesn't always work because the drone still thinks it is in flight. Down and in on the sticks is also not a great emergency stop protocol because it can be performed on accident. The combination of buttons and joystick moves (like the down in left stick + home button for DJI systems) is much safer and can be programmed to kill the motors immediately instead of having to wait 3 seconds.

Trust me, this type of immediate emergency shutdown was critical for landing a Matrice 600 (~ 2 m wingspan) on an 18 foot dive boat. I know people hand catch these large drones, but our university safety people would not let us and we had to land on a rocking, elevated landing pad while the boat was drifting. We could not get 3 seconds of stable gyro readings and the drone would not shut down using normal landing procedures. Only the immediate emergency shutdown allowed us to do the experiments we were running.

 

[gschulzuio]

Has anyone else encountered being able to stop the motors (when they wont stop) by left stick down (not inward), right stick down and inward. Stumbled on this today, have not tried with props on and airborne, however the motors stopped very quickly.

 

[uas_gian]

Has anyone else encountered being able to stop the motors (when they wont stop) by left stick down (not inward), right stick down and inward. Stumbled on this today, have not tried with props on and airborne, however the motors stopped very quickly.

Stick down will stop motors if the aircraft has its four feet on a stable surface. However when you try to hand catch the drone or try to land on a rocking boat or even on a slightly sloped rooftop, then the aircraft cannot detect a stable surface well and it can become difficult to turn off the props.

 

[gschulzuio]

Stick down will stop motors if the aircraft has its four feet on a stable surface. However when you try to hand catch the drone or try to land on a rocking boat or even on a slightly sloped rooftop, then the aircraft cannot detect a stable surface well and it can become difficult to turn off the props.

Correct if all is working ok, however there have been scenarios even when all four feet are on stable surface and with stick down, props keep spinning, eventually they will spin down. Likewise there have been situations where need is to stop the props when inflight (e.g. emergency, force it to drop where it is) and behavior is not as expected. As for hand catching, good luck.

 

[tjernagel]

Older thread, but it came up when I was searching for an emergency shutdown of my Evo Pro. I was flying around my house, lots of trees everywhere, so it was a very careful flight, in/out/around the trees, never more than about 30' off the ground.

I couldn't land (dogs were going to grab it) so I flew it up to where I could reach up and grab it. When I had hold of it, I pulled the left rudder full down, expecting it to turn the props off. That didn't happen. The drone went crazy and with full power on, it would have headed straight into the trees for a dreadful crash.

I tried everything to get it to stop, but nothing worked. I tried to pull the battery out but all I managed to do was to cut my fingers on the spinning props. Yes, I'm bleeding like a stuck pig.

I finally stuck it into some shrubs to get it to stop.

So yes, and emergency shutdown would have been very useful.

Been there done that... Still looking for that RED button for an emergency shut down. When it gets me is when it's landing. After it touches down it doesn't shutdown. If you leave it eventually it will flip itself and shut down then... When I see this failure I grab it and no matter what I do it won't shut off. Turning off the remote, both sticks down, shutting battery off, nothing... It just goes at high speed... I've seen this more than 3 times and it's not fun... Battery can't be pulled without clipping the fingers...

 

[herein2021]

Been there done that... Still looking for that RED button for an emergency shut down. When it gets me is when it's landing. After it touches down it doesn't shutdown. If you leave it eventually it will flip itself and shut down then... When I see this failure I grab it and no matter what I do it won't shut off. Turning off the remote, both sticks down, shutting battery off, nothing... It just goes at high speed... I've seen this more than 3 times and it's not fun... Battery can't be pulled without clipping the fingers...

What firmware are you on? I have never had that happen to me. I never plan on upgrading the firmware though so I feel like its a bug in the later firmware. I have had it take an unusually long time to shut down a few times...long as in 30s vs the usual 5s but that's it.

 

[gschulzuio]

Been there done that... Still looking for that RED button for an emergency shut down. When it gets me is when it's landing. After it touches down it doesn't shutdown. If you leave it eventually it will flip itself and shut down then... When I see this failure I grab it and no matter what I do it won't shut off. Turning off the remote, both sticks down, shutting battery off, nothing... It just goes at high speed... I've seen this more than 3 times and it's not fun... Battery can't be pulled without clipping the fingers...

Couple of things, if you run into the situation again where the motors do not stop after landing, e.g. beyond the normal couple of seconds, try pulling left stick down, and right stick down and inward. May or may not work, however stumbled on it and worth a try. Also if you are landing on the ground or low and have to reach down to pull battery, concur, not going to be fun. Otoh, if you land on an elevated surface where you are approaching aircraft from below props, still not as safe as if props stopped, however can be easier to pull battery, ymmv.

 

[tjernagel]

What firmware are you on? I have never had that happen to me. I never plan on upgrading the firmware though so I feel like its a bug in the later firmware. I have had it take an unusually long time to shut down a few times...long as in 30s vs the usual 5s but that's it.

It has the latest firmware.

Had a big issue yesterday when I selected "Go Home". It went home right into a tree, down onto a walkway over a pond and into the pond. The avoidance system was on and I was unable to pause or get it up or away. It's a total loss, have insurance and am covered. Trying to understand what happened I went back to two screenshot videos I made in the morning for fellow drone pilot friend and reviewed the landing sequence. On each of the recordings when the aircraft was less than a foot off the ground it was reading higher than it really was (see attached screenshots). With it about to land I'm watching the aircraft, not the display so I had never noticed it before...

I'm guessing the aircraft never saw the tree below it or thought it was farther away than it was. When I saw it reposition itself over the tree and start coming down, I was powerless or it reacted too late... What I'll probably never figure out is why it wouldn't respond so I could save it... I was flying in standard mode with everything turned on to protect it. I wanted an EVO II Pro for the 6k camera which I'll probably upgrade to 8k and the avoidance system...

Even after going for a swim and drying out overnight it powers up, but the frame is broken with two bad legs. It's only good for parts if that... I have a Mavic Air 2 I've flown for some time and never had an issue like this...

I have contacted Autel and will wait to see if they can offer any comments on how this could occur. Hopefully the video will help others...

Crash and Burn...

Flight Control - V0.0.4.73
Camera - V0.2.32.97
Remote Controller - V4.0.0.11
RC Panel - V4.0.3.7
Image Transmission - V2.0.1.48
RC Image Transmission - V2.0.1.48
Gimbal - V0.1.55.0
Battery - V0.0.16.0
Vision Module - V0.2.32.97
Sonar - V4.0.0.3
ESC 1-4 - V1.0.3.6

 

[herein2021]

It has the latest firmware.

Had a big issue yesterday when I selected "Go Home". It went home right into a tree, down onto a walkway over a pond and into the pond. The avoidance system was on and I was unable to pause or get it up or away. It's a total loss, have insurance and am covered. Trying to understand what happened I went back to two screenshot videos I made in the morning for fellow drone pilot friend and reviewed the landing sequence. On each of the recordings when the aircraft was less than a foot off the ground it was reading higher than it really was (see attached screenshots). With it about to land I'm watching the aircraft, not the display so I had never noticed it before...

I'm guessing the aircraft never saw the tree below it or thought it was farther away than it was. When I saw it reposition itself over the tree and start coming down, I was powerless or it reacted too late... What I'll probably never figure out is why it wouldn't respond so I could save it... I was flying in standard mode with everything turned on to protect it. I wanted an EVO II Pro for the 6k camera which I'll probably upgrade to 8k and the avoidance system...

Even after going for a swim and drying out overnight it powers up, but the frame is broken with two bad legs. It's only good for parts if that... I have a Mavic Air 2 I've flown for some time and never had an issue like this...

I have contacted Autel and will wait to see if they can offer any comments on how this could occur. Hopefully the video will help others...

Crash and Burn...

Flight Control - V0.0.4.73
Camera - V0.2.32.97
Remote Controller - V4.0.0.11
RC Panel - V4.0.3.7
Image Transmission - V2.0.1.48
RC Image Transmission - V2.0.1.48
Gimbal - V0.1.55.0
Battery - V0.0.16.0
Vision Module - V0.2.32.97
Sonar - V4.0.0.3
ESC 1-4 - V1.0.3.6

I personally never use the RTH feature and always manually fly my EVO, your experience is another example of why I don't trust automation; as far as it not responding, once you press the RTH button it will not respond in any way unless you press the pause button. You are supposed to also be able to press cancel on the screen but I have seen it not respond to that either and the only truly reliable way to cancel RTH is via the pause button on the remote.

I have had to press that button a few times after a signal loss as it triggered automatic RTH and nothing would cancel it except the pause button.

For the landing on a tree part, IMO the downwards facing OA is mainly only good for landing and large flat obstructions, the branches in a tree, especially near the top of the tree are probably too small for it to detect.

 

[vinainor]

So bottom line, this feature doesn’t exist on Autel drones even though it exists on all DJI drone, correct?