Loss of radio data link - Parrot Anafi Work Pix4DCapture

PIX4Dcapture
1

Hello guys!! How are you? Hope fine!

 

I have some doubts about Drone Anafi Work when it loses the SkyController 3 radio signal during a mission in Pix4D Capture:

 

  1. What is the action of the Pix4DCapture software (the drone returns to Home Point)?

  2. When it loses the communication signal is it possible to control it in manual mode? What would be the procedure (close Pix4DCapture and use Freeflght 6 software in manual mode?)?

  3. With the loss of radio signal communication will the Drone restart the mission from the beginning or where did it stop?

 

Where can I check more information about emergency actions related to Anafi Work and Pix4DCapture?

 

Regards

2

Hello Paulo, we are fine! Hope you are good also.

Thank you for your questions. About the fail-safe behavior of the Parrot ANAFI, I would suggest you have a look at this webpage. Pix4Dcapture is acting as a third-party application and it can not override the fail-safe behavior of the drone but I can not make guarantee here as it has not been extensively tested.

  1. Using the Android or iOS version of Pix4Dcapture, all along the flight you have the possibility to tap ABORT+GO HOME (Android) or PAUSE+GO HOME. It will trigger a Return-To-Home.

  2. The manual mode is activated as soon as you will move the remote controller joysticks as explained on our procedure available here on our support website. You don’t need to close Pix4Dcapture to take manual control of the drone. However, when the connection is lost, I can not tell the behavior of the drone as we did not test it in this configuration.

  3. It is also very difficult to answer this question as we did not test our application in this configuration. on iOS, you should be able to resume the mission at the last acquisition point for all type of missions except circular and on Android, you should be able to resume a mission when flying a Grid pattern.

I will investigate and confirm what would be the behavior in those cases.

Best

3

Pix4D Capture 4.4.0 (11) using  iOS 12.1.4

I’ve been flighting several times with the PARROT Anafi Work using Pix4DCapture and it was very scary.

  1. On flights I realized that:
  • When the Drone is getting 30% of battery Pix4DCapture emits a first warning that the battery is low (usually for safety always pressed PAUSE and then GO TO HOME in multiple battery mode to landing the Drone)
  • I tried to let it follow the flight plan and if you did not press the PAUSE and then GO TO HOME  option (multiple battery mode) the Drone continues executing the plan until the 25%
  • When it reaches 25% it enters on " HOVER" mode and it stays hovering where it reached that battery level on the map
  • If you do not press ABORT , or press PAUSE and then GO TO HOME  option (multiple battery mode), the Drone remains stopped in HOVER mode consuming battery
  • I left it in the air hovering to check what would happen (basically for safety it should go back to HOME POINT ) and for my surprise it continued hovering until 9% battery level (every 5% it issued warning that battery was low) and the Drone had no action!!!
  • So I pressed PAUSE and then GO TO HOME  option (multiple battery mode) for don’t crash it on the ground. The Drone landed and I changed the battery and pressed RESUME to continue where it stopped

Question: Why Pix4DCapture did not trigger a safe mode for the Drone go back to HOME POINT. Although it is a third-party application when we use Parrot Free Fligh 6, the program and the Drone use their intelligence to trigger RTH automatically (it calculates the maximum battery level based on the height and distance from HOME POINT) and I choose by myself if I want to continue forcing the flight or not

  1. In a flight plan the Drone disappeared on the Pix4DCapture map:
  • While the Drone was mapping a line and getting away from me it disappeared on the map for a long time 
  • Was so scary!!! But for my surprise he have continued the flight plan and reappeared on the map as he returned on another line as he approached me
  • At the same time I aborted the flight and it landed

Question: Why did Drone not turn to the RTH mode since the loss of communication between Pix4DCapture and Drone? When using Free Fligh 6 if there is a loss of signal, the Drone triggers intelligent RTH mode.

4

Before you tell me:

…To be sure that the connection is effective all along your mission with the drone. This documentation may be useful…

or

…In a general way, you can have a look at our basic checks and troubleshooting steps article…

rsrsrsr

Please just tell me summarizely what could be the solution to this problem? Because I need safety for my Drone and for people below me.

 

Regards,

Paulo

5

Hello Paulo,

Thank you for all the details provided and for sharing your experience.

In a general way, Pix4Dcapture is a third-party application and cannot override the fail-safe behavior of the drone which is set in Free Flight 6. On Pix4Dcapture, as you mentioned, only a warning will be displayed when the battery goes under 30%.
I can suggest reading this Parrot documentation about fail-safe behavior. If you have any question about the fail-safe behavior of the drone, I would suggest you contact Parrot as we don’t have any expertise for that.

Also, using pix4Dcapture, I would recommend not taking any risks while flying missions and to interrupt it as soon as an unexpected behavior occurs following this procedure. Indeed we did not extensively test those edge cases and how the drone will behave.

Best,

6

Thanks for request.

I think you didn’t understand.

Using Free Flight 6 If the drone looses signal It comes back to Home Point automatically using his intelligence, but this doesn’t happen using Pix4DCapture. If It looses the signal It continues on the mapping line (it should come to Home Point) doesn’t shoot photos and with lucky maybe in the other line the signal comes back (where he lost signal there is no photos).

When using Pix4DCapture it doesn’t use the intelligence that was set up on Free Flight 6. It should come back to home point.

About the battery safe when using Free Flight 6 It uses his intelligence to calculate what’s the right time to come back to Home Point. Using Pix4DCapture with 30% battery first message is showed, than on 25% stays on Hover mode, than If you don’t do anything the drone keeps hovering until the battery dead. It should come back to home point.

In both cases Pix4DCapture is not using what we’re setting up on Free Flight 6. I can conclude that Pix4DCapture is overnighting it.

I don’t need check the Parrot site because It executes the right thing when using FF6, but not using Pix4Dcapture.

Regards.

7

Hi Paulo,

I think I got the point now, thanks for the extra explanations.
I will share what you experienced with the developers/testers and update you once I have feedback from them about what you reported.

Best,