Walk In The Park / First Wreck Experience

[FliesDrones]

Here's the "first" flight around a park, just getting used to the experience.

Couple of bits of advice for anyone trying this out, make sure your object tracking is disabled when switching modes... don't track a car with cable cam to test out and then switch to motion track unless you want your drone to fly 36 MPH to catch up to it; don't be me.

The reason "first" is in quotations is because I crashed the drone before this flight (RIP spare blue props). Obstacle avoidance is on point but there was a dead tree with absolutely zero leaves. I put the drone into orbit with height flooring on and it just clipped a branch beneath it... it still tried to recover and lost the battery on impact. No logs or video files could be recovered so be mindful of the space around you.

 

[frankbonatelli]

Wow must have been a day for just this kind of sinario! The sky met the earth for me too. Not clear what the human did wrong how ever. I was following me abord the big KTM and set the beacon distance height as far back as it allows. Placed it front left of pilot and away I went. Was amazing to see! Whoop whoop Hollywood style footage for my up and coming ride north! Ha then it all went south or good. Noticed that the drone was creeping in on me, getting lower and closer along the beacon height line. Dodged a bush, opps, Dodged another tree, oh dam, third times not the charge. Down it came! Narrowly missed a slew. The battery blew out and landed two inches off the water and the drone dropped onto the roadway right side up! So sad to see.
I was lucky for sure as it could have been total loss. I’d like to say lesson learned but it begs the question, what’s the lesson? Isn’t this device designed for the very thing I was doing, once in the air and autonomous isn’t it doing what we all paid for. Not sure how one can avoid this in future rides as it seems to me in the wind trees and shrubs show up at random occasions when and ware Mother Nature decides.
How would the human help the ai avoid this in the future? Maybe some of the old hand drone pilot / riders can weigh in on these thoughts.

 

[Ridefreak]

You might want to put in a problem report to SD and share your log files. I use it exclusively to follow a MC and while I've had it creep in or out before it's never hit anything unless I was ether going too fast for it to see and avoid an obstacle or the height floor was turned off and it was flying down around the bush level and ran into something it didn't see.

In the future if you see it doing something risky or heading into a bad situation and you have time, you can use the blue button on the beacon to wand it upwards or tell it to stop.

Care to share the video? I've probably got a 100 Skydio flights following a MC and may be able to give you some ideas.

 

[frankbonatelli]

The first Crash

So this is the crsash video. It shows the setup is as i said. However reading your words regarding my speed speed I think at point of the crash i was 70 kms per hour or about 44 miles per hour. Makes sense that it would be unable to calculate the objects but i do not understand why it went from a safe distance to so close in. Had it stayed were i placed it there wouldn't have been any issues.
Life is full of learning's. Tomorrow we fly again with luck and learning it'll be different.
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Apologies for hijacking your personal words. Lets all get back on OP. Sorry!!

 

[Ridefreak]

When it's full out trying to catch up that's a risky time if it's low to the ground. It tries to look out further and at the same time the speed means it sometimes doesn't see small stuff in time to do much about it. Not sure if that was a factor in your crash but seeing that it didn't damage it you're lucky, it's easy to become over confident in the drone's abilities.

 

[skydioconvert]

Mix together being overly confident in the drones ability to avoid "EVERY" obstacle combined with operating at speeds sometimes out of your control (i.e. when its automatically trying to catch up) is something Skydio needs to do a better job warning its customers about.

Doubt there will ever come a magical fix to this problem but what Ridefreak said earlier (see red below) seems to be a good first step. It's probably even better to just tell the drone to stop than wand it a particular direction when its getting into risky areas.

"In the future if you see it doing something risky or heading into a bad situation and you have time, you can use the blue button on the beacon to wand it upwards or tell it to stop."

 

[CSparks]

Do you think S2 has trouble with quick changes in elevation? My first couple of flights were similar setups on my Mtn. Bike. Had the distance set to max with beacon and height floor enabled. I went down some pretty steep hills. The S2 lost me and got scary close to the ground trying to find me again. It didn’t crash but I thought it was strange it got that close to the ground with the height floor on.

 

[VEGASROBBI]

I find with rapid elevation changes the S2 will fly closer to the ground, even with the height floor enabled.

On several occasions my S2 had to navigate through the brush at speed. So far it's been able to avoid obstacles like a champ; to the point I have confidence in it's abilities.

I agree with RF wand the S2 up if things get complex. Remember to hold the blue button when dragging.

I found an interesting way to use the wand. I hold it down to the center console pointing forward and when going around turns in the fixed mode I hold the blue button down and the drone stays clocked to the front of the vehicle based on the movement. I find the motion mode makes the S2 swing wildly especially at a distance.

 

[Ridefreak]

The first Crash

So this is the crsash video. It shows the setup is as i said. However reading your words regarding my speed speed I think at point of the crash i was 70 kms per hour or about 44 miles per hour. Makes sense that it would be unable to calculate the objects but i do not understand why it went from a safe distance to so close in. Had it stayed were i placed it there wouldn't have been any issues.
Life is full of learning's. Tomorrow we fly again with luck and learning it'll be different.
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Yeah, I see what you mean, it seemed to forget the altitude it was set at. I see the vid just stopped, was that the end of the file? If so it might be an early indication of an issue and the drone's loss in altitude might have just been a precursor to it's brain going off line. It shouldn't have done that IMO. You might want to share it with skydio, if for nothing else to document a possible issue in case it happens again.

 

[frankbonatelli]

Yeah, I see what you mean, it seemed to forget the altitude it was set at. I see the vid just stopped, was that the end of the file? If so it might be an early indication of an issue and the drone's loss in altitude might have just been a precursor to it's brain going off line. It shouldn't have done that IMO. You might want to share it with skydio, if for nothing else to document a possible issue in case it happens again.

Yea that was the end. It bounced off the branch and hit the dirt trail. I've sent all logs in to skydio and politely asked were I can send it for a tune up. The gimble has a wobble in the footage now. It only shows whendrone is static. I'll assume operator error, pay for AQ tune up and fly on. Sadly they Arte not super fast to respond. What ever, they will get to me eventually.
Thanks for all your input.