I’m flying Phantom 4 Pro v1. When I fly waypoint missions where my Signal is lost for 12 minutes, once the signal is restored, the drone will Return to Home (RTH), aborting the waypoint mission.
In contrast, if the drone only loses the Signal for a few minutes (for example less than 5), the waypoint mission DOES continue when the Signal is restored. I am not sure where the cutoff is as to when the waypoint mission will continue versus RTH.
I really wanted the drone to continue the waypoint mission (the drone is on its way home anyways as part of the waypoint mission). Instead, as a RTH, the drone flies a straight line home.
Inside Litchi Settings (Android) v4.24.1-g the “Signal Lost Behavior” can only be set to Hover, Landing or Return To Home. I set it to “Return to Home” - no real choice there.
I’ve set the “Exit Waypoint Mission on Signal Loss” to off (I.e. grayed out).
My question is, can I make the drone always continue the waypoint mission when the Signal is restored?
Note that this is outside of a battery low RTH condition.
Thank you for your feedback.
I guess that is possible, but would surprise me since my battery showed 24% at the time of reconnect. In the DJI GO 4 app I have the following (Note remaining battery in this image is from a subsequent flight on a different mission with no issues)
Smart RTH will be activated in such conditions that the drone will land with at least 10% battery left.
This activation is determined by the drone itself, signal or no signal doesn’t make any difference.
As said above: Control signal has NO influence.
You could disable SMART RTH, then the drone will continue the mission until battery level reaches 10% in which case Force Landing will be activated.
So you could loose your drone.
I have to ask Michael, if you are flying in a situation where you cannot control your drone for any extended period - how can that possibly be deemed ‘safe flight’ in whatever region you fly in? Do you have complete LOS or are you flying BVLOS?
I think regardless of visual tracking (flight safety) the fact that you cannot exert control over your aircraft should you NEED to is the major concern, not ‘can you force it to continue an autopilot flight’
RTH on signal loss is a designed in flight safety feature which recognises these points (as does forced auto-land).
A valid concern. In my case the flight is in remote Northern Canada where there are no roads, no buildings, no dwellings, no power lines. Just forest and lakes. The home point is at the end of an old rough disused logging road, flying further afield into the wilderness.
I envy you your freedom there Michael, here in the UK every square foot of ground (even ‘public’ spaces) is owned/governed. And with our regs saying you have to have landowner’s permission to take-off, finding people who don’t automatically knee-jerk into ‘drones are evil’ mode is challenging.
Good luck with your control issue 