Software Suggestion: Pathed return-to-home.

[trontar]

I once launched from a spot where an overhanging tree (far up) obscured the straight vertical line to clear sky.
The Nano+ kept overriding my manual return-to-home flight and being unpracticed in blocking that, I ended up with a bad result.

If I could offer an idea to Autel, it would be for the drone to store the path it launched with, and upon return to home, go back to that path and follow it to landing spot.

This would let you launch from an obstructed space, even say a carport or garage.

It would be great fun to work on this software, but I probably couldn't be effective enough to earn a salary at it.

With access to the FCU SDK, I'd do it for free though!

 

[kenautelevo2pro]

unfortunately i don't think the battery life would make this type of feature very useful. you are better off making sure the launch area is clear and maybe the drone can rely on sensors when coming back to land or you can change the return home point.

 

[trontar]

I think my explanation was not very good. Let me retry!
The idea would be:
1) on launch record path for say 30 meters / 100 feet from home point. That would be some spot in the air, at altitude. Drone remembers that gps spot and altitude as 'direct-fly-to airpoint'.
2) After low battery threshold directly fly shortest distance to 'direct-fly-to airpoint', then folow the launch path backwards to the actual launch/landing spot.
This would not be retracing the entire flight path and wouldn't add more than a few seconds of flight time.
Makes sense now?

 

[kenautelevo2pro]

I think my explanation was not very good. Let me retry!
The idea would be:
1) on launch record path for say 30 meters / 100 feet from home point. That would be some spot in the air, at altitude. Drone remembers that gps spot and altitude as 'direct-fly-to airpoint'.
2) After low battery threshold directly fly shortest distance to 'direct-fly-to airpoint', then folow the launch path backwards to the actual launch/landing spot.
This would not be retracing the entire flight path and wouldn't add more than a few seconds of flight time.
Makes sense now?

sure does. this isn't really necessary since there are often only 2 main reasons to engage return to home: when you lose connection and when the battery is low. those are the most popular reasons but i understand some people like to end their day by just returning the drone to home automatically or if they get disoriented and can't be sure where they are flying, just hit rth.

the good news is that you can interrupt rth and take control of your drone at some point. if you lose connection and your drone rth automatically, as soon as you are within range, you will regain the connection, you can cancel or pause the rth, and you can guide it...for those few times you launched from an unsuitable landing site. this means you can land elsewhere or you can guide the drone in perhaps the same way as you guide it out. if the battery runs low and the drone returns on it's on, same thing. the flyer is given a fair amount of control over the drone and it's not necessary to require the drone to navigate an unaided difficult landing. pilots will have to step up. however, if you drop your controller in the lake....

finally i would like to add some drones allow you to change the return to home point. this is particularly useful when your drone is tracking a moving subject (which could be the pilot). at the end, you don't want your drone to fly away back home to some point you are no longer located so by changing the home point, you take manual control and don't depend on automatic functions. the experienced pilot learns to adjust his settings depending on the environment which could be changing the flight behavior to hover instead of rth on disconnect or low battery. it's only 2022 and not 2122 so we still have to actually fly our drones rather than try to create smarts in which the technology is not yet suitable for; ask the dji mavic 3 rth owners. the only sensors i ever trust are labeled skydio.