Flying Over Water - Downward Positioning Sensors On or Off?
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- Опубликовано: 1 ноя 2017
- Exploring the topic of Downward Vision Positioning Sensors with the Mavic Pro and Phantom 4 Pro over water. Should they be turned on or off for the best and safest experience flying over water?
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What are your experiences with flying over water? Have you noticed better flight/hover performance with the downward vision positioning turned on or off?
Hi Ed! I always leave it on, and works ok for me! Thanks for the risky video! Cheers from Argentina!
I flew my Mavic over a lake in Southern Illinois quite a bit over the summer with no problems. But, I didn't really get any lower than 15 feet or so, I kept it moving, and I did turn off the downward sensors because I was going to have to hand catch it from a boat.
Hey Ed! First things first thank you so much for the videos!
I've done many many flights over water, under tight bridges, waterfalls and other similar scenarios... from my experience it goes like this:
Sensor off for sure! Once I had the drone raising under the bridge and I had to put it down almost diving with it into the water...
At 1:19 you pointed out you'r looking at the "H" value which is based on the take off position. What I do Instead is to look at the VPS value which will give you a more accurate distance from the water. I always trust the 1 meter (3ft) VPS reading and haven't had issues so far... Just make sure you keep an eye on the value as you fly and make adjustments so it doesn't go lower than that...
Happy flying!
Honestly I think you should try the same with the mavic but when actually flying, not hovering. I dont think you often hover low over water when filming, you actually fly? The rippeling of the water would be different and maybe even completely gone underneath the drone when flying.
Mine hovers nice and close to water without issue.
BEST video I've seen yet in regards to flying over water. I've wanted some low flying water footage and this was by far the best information I've seen about it. GLAD you risked your drone over water before I risked MINE! Thanks for the video!
This was an excellent demonstration. I'm always nervous over water so I keep altitude but I have seen this phenomenon and didn't know the reason. While I will keep cautious, I can now properly react to such movements.
Glad you didn't lose any drones in your test. Thanks for sharing, Ed!
What a great test, I would have thought it was a forgone conclusion but that is "why we play the game" as they say. Good info, I'm going to be leaving mine on for sure.
I think its better to leave it on,i would rather it climbs than fall :)
Thanks for the test!!
This was very enlightening for me. I can’t tell you how frustrating this is when I’m shooting real estate and I want to fly low over pools. Hard to make cinematic footage when it’s going up and down.
Thanks for risking taking one for the team, really good to know
As my main hobby is angling this has been a very useful video, as yet I've not had the courage to fly over still water or a river, however, I have floats as a just in case it does crash land and is recoverable, the river is a different proposition, so looks like leaving sensor on is a better option, cheers Ed
Dude you are a brave man. That was making me nervous, all my nails have been bitten off watching this video.
Great video, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for testing it out. It would have been interesting not only hovering but moving forward / backward as well.
Great test Ed, would have been curious to see how it reacts while flying horizontally across the water.
I've had similar experiences while flying above water - both the lowering and raising (w/ sensors on). Regardless, one has to pay close attention when flying like that.
Excellent test. Thanks Ed!
Thanks for the video! I was wondering about this too!
Made me nervous as well. Good test!!!!!! Thanks for your expert insight:)
Wow! Never gave it much thought about how the water would effect that. Nice job. I'm still flying the Mavic I bought from you last year. Got a Spark 3 months ago but haven't had time to mess around with it.
Good video, I flew over the water a lot. This really help me. Thanks
You are the ultimate teacher. Keep it up. don't quit making tutorials.
Hey, that's my stomping grounds! Just got my Mavic Air on Friday and that was the first place I went to shoot. Perhaps I'll see you out there sometime.
I wouldn't DARE do that experiment.. thanks for the info.
Awesome video Ed I cant believe that I was nervous just watching you do this ? Thaks alot - I live by the coast and fly over water alot but steer clear of going this low - if you are ever in the UK feel free to visit we have some ace places to shoot footage !
So I recently tested this myself on a very clear mountain stream and I got so low that it went into landing mode, luckily shoving the sticks up sent it back into the air. But talk about heart stopper.
Sometimes my hand shakes from the early stages of Parkinsons Disease, but when I nearly flew 4,500 Feet in distance this morning, I was shaking really bad from the excitement and adrenaline. I'll fly over water with my Phantom 3 Standard, but not my Mavic Pro.
I caught a close splash down in this video. It’ll make you sick to your stomach. ruclips.net/video/17IRxYFD7so/видео.html
Gutz Man! that's what we call a brave guy down here. Thanks for risking you're birds to show us exactly what happens. The debate is over, fly low over water at you're own risk.
Video was quite informative on some doubts I've been having regarding this, I just started flying my Mavic not too long ago, and a friend told me about someone's Mavic that flew too close to water that it got sucked into it, and dragged by the current, that had me paranoid.-
Excellent video. Very relevant as most of my flying will be out over the ocean from a boat.
As I'm wanting to buy soon this was great information.
Great Videos buddie... Keep up the good work...
Interesting. My first flight last week on my mavic, I flew over a pond, probably 15 cms above the water without a problem. Watching this today makes me feel very nervous. I think I just got lucky. I've flown 15 - 20 cms over river waters several times with a bebop 2 and never had any issues. Thanks.
GREAT info! i love watching ur experiments!!
Great video,thanks for showing this
I tried a low fly over a beautiful smoky mountain rapid stream with sensors on , not good, took everything not to loose it in the water. Drifted left , right, forward, back, up, and down, all at the same time! lol. I did get some great slow mo water footage.
Rapid mountain stream with constantly chaotic visuals? No wonder the downward VPS was confused.
Top info Ed thanks again!
That video was stressing me out :D very informative tho! I kinda want to test this with my mavic air to see if the new firmware update makes any difference!
Great video as always, Ed! I'm always afraid my Mavic will go into auto-land and try and land on the water!
I thought the same, but I don't believe it will auto-land because it thinks that it is still 3 feet up. Of course, that could change quickly under these control-fooling conditions.
Mee to am so scared
Excellent video Ed !
When you disable the vision sensor system I don't think you disable the downward ultrasonic sensors. They might be confused by the ripples on the water.
Thanks Ed! Great to know. Appreciate all your hard work. And the Spark? Any experiences to mention?
Such a great topic to cover! Thanks for the tip! :)
Craig D'Andrea well I have done this and I will tell you this i had my sensors on and flew a mile away and when I turned around to come back the sensors wouldn't let me I almost lost my drone over the,water and the reason is beacue with your sensors on the glair from the sun in the day time makes your sensors think something is there and there's is not and because of me almost losing my drone because of this I leave them off they cause more problems when there. On this is a fact
Nice test.Ed ! Very interesting
Great video, very useful to me as a newbie mavic/Spark flyer, thanks. Notice something interesting about how the phantom and mavic affect the water surface, the mavic creates a wider flat area compared to the phantom, curious as to why.
Great video, and and looked better just being out for a bit. Ha. I was flying over the river yesterday and I wasn’t comfortable under 20 ft ... ha...
Found this in reccomended, Am gonna fly over water today tho, so thanks for the video
Love this vid I'm buying them both you here there sound wow
I've had the drone report it had reached maximum altitude when it was only 10' in the air, over moving water. I have also seen the drift issues you experienced caused by firmware/ device software mismatches over land.
Thanks Ed. On my DJI Phantom 3 has the exact same result. It was safer with the sensors "on" and flying above 20 feet when over water. Thanks!
GPS signal altitude error is always considerably worse than the horizontal (position error). Much of this is a matter of geometry. So it's natural to experience the quadcopter to hover quite stable over a certain spot over ground, but to wobble significantly in height. That was exactly what was observed in your test, only that the downward sensors over past 2 years became just robust enough to get you covered over open water. Things should become better with the GLONASS incorporated into the sensors.
Great video Ed. Hell. My rule of thumb. When over water fly high and fast. LOL.
First time out mith my Mavic Pro it did exactly this over a deep river and actually ended up in the water!!!!! thankfully the props still got it out of the water and after a few days of acting very strange, once dried out properly it did work ok again - phew!!!!!
This is a good analysis. My experience has been even with the sensor on, the drone started acting crazy and it took off like 100 ft up quickly. The other problem I had which I don't understand, If I land inside a building, for example, imagine an octagon building with a huge space in the middle, as soon as I start landing, I lose contact then Immediately I increase altitude to gain control. scary, but that's how I found out.
Thanks Ed. For advise.
Very useful test. Thanks
Great Vlog as always ED. I fly the Mavic(Personal) and the P4Pro(for work) every week and i always notice that the P4Pro is never as stable as the Mavic. Yes the Camera on the P4Pro is great but as an overall drone for stability, wind stability, etc, the Mavic is the better drone. I just turn off all the sensors these days, too many issues with sun and reflections for what i need to do
I haven't had too much experience with flying my Mavic over water, but in my last video there's a bit where I fly it very low over a canal, and the controls did become very wonky... At times the drone even moved to the sides when the only input I gave it was to fly forward. Definitely need to do more research/experimenting on this in order to make it a safe thing to do.
Thought it was worthy to note.. I own the Phantom 3 standard and the Mavic and I have found that the lack of sensors on the Phantom 3 allows it to hover over water nicely but I wouldn't go less than 5 feet high with anything.
Man, you have balls... I thought you were going to trigger auto landing by accident with the mavic at one point. Great video!
great video , very informative thx
Good test thanks
Hi Ed,
I have a Mavic and I test / experienced the same behavior than yours with the positioning sensors on; uncontrolled climbing and drifting. With the positioning sensors off it was stable. Well, as stable as a Phantom 3 Standard, as the height is now only measured trough barometric sensor and GPS, which is less precise also because the barometric sensor is affected by temperature changes.
Great contribution to understanding self-generated hazards to the Mavic. I'd always rather watch somebody with better reactions fly their drone for these tests. Thanks.
thank you . you help us too much!
Cool video. The mavic 2 gave me a warning about the metal fence around my yard and then it just went full blast into a tree. I could've landed it manually perfectly fine. It had GPS. Sensors are great but good to know how to turn them off
Hi Ed....thanks for the video. Very useful, but I´ve have a couple of questions...1) Did you calibrate the compass in that place before fly?, 2) Kp Index was below 5 that day?, 3) The IMU was ok?, thanks a lot
Very nice. Definitely needed to see this. Happened to me b4 n i started panicking.
Hi! thanks for the great video! awesome work!
I have tried flying over some bodies of water like ponds and seas and haven't experience (yet) any troubles with the sensors while it is 'on' but I don't rely (and trust) on the downward sensors of my drones when flying close over the surface (water), and I am very attentive when flying on such. It's like I am flying on manual mode, so better if it's switch it off.
My opinion on why DJI suggests it has to be turned off: On solid ground, the sound (sonar) is effectively bounced and detected back by the drone, so it knows how high it is from the ground. But when it is over water surfaces, maybe the sound doesn't bounce back as effectively...
For the DJI spark, it uses infrared, but I think, same idea.
I'd rather control it manually when flying over water than it (the drone) miscalculating and crash. ;)
I just ran into an issue with my spark over water. My drone took off uncontrollable at about 5 feet, I was able to gain enough control to direct it into some soft brush. I am glad no one was in the path, as it was haulin ass. Needless to say I did not do that again lol
Good experiments, Ed. Do you know what either drone would do hovering over land, with the same settings? Would they just behave well and hover in place?
Thank u for sharing this video very informative. 👍
I been flying phantom for 3 years with great success . I got my new Mavic pro yesterday. What is the difference between ,is the the Mavic easier to fly ? Thanks
depends on what kind of water we are facing. clear, unclear, moving, still, wave, waterfall, each has different affect on VPS.
The VPS camera sensors being able to visually see the bottom of the shallow lake probably keeps it from drifting laterally, but isn't altitude determined by the ultrasonic sensors? Those probably can't get a good reflected reading from the water (or maybe even fluffy snow).
again , get video, great info. Thanks for taking the time to educate us. Well myself anyway. :} I have noticed watching others videos some you tubers / Mavic pilots have a much different format in there settings. Looking for best video setting for the newest firmware updates. I just bought some filters too. so much to learn. Needless to say Im jellouse of all your knowledge with this and other DJI drone. Keep sharing . & Thank you again..
Dam I keep ending up on your videos. its a sign, looks like I need to sub. DONE! Keep up the awesome work. :)
Thanks for watching, I appreciate it!
Geez Ed. You had me nervous. I expected at any moment to hear your controller say “Landing“. How did the drones do while actually flying forward over the water? I have flown over water about 8 feet in the air in the past and had no problem with the sensors turned on using my Mavic. Hope you feel better.
Thanks Mike! Flying forward shouldn't be as much of an issue since GPS may start taking over at that point, but that was also more difficult to show on camera. It was easier to show the deviations from a hover than from a traveling drone...especially since the altitude readings couldn't be trusted.
Thanks for watching though, I was nervous too!
I think that what we are getting without the vision or Sonar positioning systems is an altitude measurement purely and simply off the barometric sensors.
Close to the ground the prop wash is actually creating a low-pressure zone which the barometric sensor is interpreting as rising up.
I am thinking that the same behaviour might occur over solid ground when flying at a lower altitude without the vision and sauna downward sensors enabled.
I feel a science experiment coming on.
Good video Ed
This is the answer. It has not other reference to use except GPS which is greatly reduced accuracy due to the acute angle resolution being out to 6-8 decimal places or more.
What do think my problem was on my Mavic Air? Sensors and APAS was on. ruclips.net/video/17IRxYFD7so/видео.html
Could it have something to do with the actual camera facing down? Try pointing it forward, then point it down with sensors on and off and see what happens?
Great test! Now i know why my mavic was not stabel last time i flu over water :D
Hi Ed, my mavic goes nuts over water too. Good to know that is "normal". With helicopters, within 1.5-2X the rotor diameter, it will bounce a bit on the rotor wash bubble similar to the ground effect in a fixed wing. Your mavic would have to reduce power to settle into that. My guess is that it was more the false altitude reading it is reacting to. I have always had inconsistent behavior close to the ground (
Hi Franny,
No, I haven't really had that issue on a still day with the Mavic over ground. On a windy day, you may lose a bit of altitude but not as much as the Phantom 4 Pro. With the Mavic, it's really only water that I see issues with, even with the downward sensors off. In that case, maybe it is the false altitude readings! Hard to say...
Thanks for dropping by!
Scary, heart pumping
Hello Ed 3 years ago I asked for a follow up with the mavic 2 pro over water test. Now I was wondering if you could do a follow up with the Mavic 3 drone over water test and lets post the results thanks for all the videos they have been informational
Interesting test. I wonder if it would yield the same results if moving across the water rather than hovering? Cool you took the time to test two different craft. Nicely done man.
In my opinion drone somehow stops trusting optical sensors and maintains barometric altitude. Which can be somewhat affected by wind gusts or orientation of drone relative to wind. I don't want to test it, I almost drowned my mavic mini flying approximately 4m above the pond.
thanks
My experience with still water is the same as yours. I hadn't though to try rough water, but I'll do that next.
Propwash may explain the drone's behavior when the sensor is off, but it doesn't explain why the sensors indicate the drone is maintaining its altitude when they're on. Essentially the water is affecting the sensor's ability to accurately judge altitude.
Hello Ed Ricker I really enjoyed your video over the water as I have had similar results with my mavic pro.... I was writing today to ask if you have done this same test with the new mavic 2 pro and what results did you find???? is it better over water or not??????
Thanks for and response Vincent Mills certified drone pilot
Dude, you have me hear nervous and with anxiety. It’s not even my drone but just knowing something can go wrong and something happens to the drone has me screaming inside. LMAO. Thanks for sharing the video this way others can learn from this video. 👍🏼🙏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
This was intresting! Isnt it just so that with the downward sensors turned OFF, the drone don´t act based on the altitude data it collects? And as you say, a sonic-signal on "moving" water...bounces it all over the place so the altitude data gets all wacky. I don´t believe for one second that these sensors are powerful enough to penetrate water and get the altitude from the seabed. I fly alot over water (always with downward sensors ON, turn it off if I have to handcatch) and noticed that when flying low, you have to keep the drone in motion or it will act really strange altitude-wize as your video shows. Really intresting video, makes you wonder what trigger that behaviour? Thumbs up from Sweden
Hey, Ive got a Dji spark and i cannot use tracking it says to turn it on. when the option comes up to enable it i tap enable, but nothing happens. It tells me to do it again and again. any help would be great thanks!
From my experience - keep the visual sensors on all the time. If you fly high enough it does not affect at all your positioning. If you fly around 2-3 metres over the water and in constant move all the time - it helps maintain the same height. Maybe the reason this test "failed" is because you were hovering over the water. When in move the drone "reads" the surface differently, not as a plain surface... That's my guess. Owner of a mavic pro
why will the p3s stay in one spot over water and the more advanced versions even without the sensors enabled will not?
I want to put a top race payload drop on my mavic Pro but it will cover the sensors and camera. Will I have to disable these sensors and cameras to have it fly while covered?
The payload drop needs to be centered on the bottom of the craft because of stability.
Hi mate. How can I put my own songs in my footage without a computer just through the dJi app ??
First, I always fly with Enable Vision Positioning OFF and Landing Protection OFF. At the beginning of last summer I would notice when transitioning from land to over water (4' high) the Mavic would take a dive for the water. Later in the summer after a few firmware upgrades and calibrations the Mavic no longer dove toward the water (calm or waves) at any height. This allowed for some great video of ducks taking off a few feet above a calm lake. Never flew into the water once all summer.
Can you make a video with the water landing gear on mavic
Hello, what is most safe drone to flying over the water ? Mavic Pro (sonar) or Mavic Air (infrared ) ? Thanks
Hey Ed I love your posts. I just picked up a Mavic Pro last week and I'm still getting all things updated. I have an iPad 2/3 9.7" and want to use it, but I can't find an app that works. "Go4" will not load from the Apple Store, and the Mavic is not listed in the "Go"app from Dji. All of the rest listed are $ and are not clear if they will work. What app should I use? Thanks for you time.
Just as a thought, I'm wondering if the up/down movement you had at the beginning close to shore was the sensors reflecting off the lake bottom and the water surface together was the cause. You mentioned that it didn't make much of a difference with the sensors on/off further out. The lake bottom may be too deep to cause the extra reflection out there...
Just a thought.
I was told not to fly close to the water when I was training for drones. Due to the limitations of the sensors, there has been a lot of experience that drones go into the water without any control.
I lost my first Mavic flying over Water under a bridge. It acted as if the compass or GPS was off. Lost altitude, then gained altitude and hit up under the bridge and crashed. The water wasn’t my main issue, but all the concrete and steel really confused it. It would be great to see a low lying bridge test that you can walk under and safely do a test. I lost pretty much all control flying under a solid bridge. Lesson learned.
Were you going slow so that it spent a long time under there?
Mitchell Hubbard Yes. I actually made it under and through the bridge once before, but the drone lost altitude closer to the water so I went forward faster. The second time was slower and that’s when I couldn’t accelerate. It had a mind of it’s own. All avoidance sensors were on, so I believe it would allow me to lower the drone closer to the water to get it out from under the bridge. It hit up under the bridge and crashed into the water.
O shit. . And I which was planning to fly under a big bridge and then up and over it .. Don't think I dare that now with my P4 !!!
Matthew Trudeau I did the same thing but luckily I didn’t lose it, but it does effect the gps and compass probably cause of the magnetic field coming from the bridge.
Going under bridges and obstacles is a huge no-no. The drone can quickly enter ATTI mode and fast start drifting because the lack of GPS signal or compass disturbance.
I was planning to this for a very large model boat demo, you changed my mind, I think I'll pass. Good Video
Thanks
I wonder when a Mavic goes into auto land if the pause button still works?