Anafi in the Ohio river

[Fmaxii]

Hi,
It’s not mine.
I can’t imagine how this could happen. Critical battery level at more than 80%, then... autolanding

 

[Ana789]

Lucky, screen recording is showing clearly the malfunction on Parrots side!
80+ batterie level and out of nowhere "critical battery, autolanding"
That should get a new Anafi without even the usual discussion of the Parrot mail/phone/... "service".

And yes, this happend a couple of times, to other Anafi Pilots, myself included.
Not at 80, but 50%, 40%, mine at 20%.
And in case the bird is a bit higher, it can result in "Anafi fell out of the Air"-topics
Because it seems that there is a big batterie management problem, in some (?) Anafis.
So that even without water, it will not only land, but (like mine from 15 m) fell the last 10, 20, xx meter to the ground and gets damaged badly.

But like I wrote: this video should get the owner a "new" one!

 

[jspg]

So that even without water, it will not only land, but (like mine from 15 m) fell the last 10, 20, xx meter to the ground and gets damaged badly.

I think it is not the cause of flying over the water, I have done many footage over the water (see the attached file), I am curios how old or the quality of that battery was, I mark every battery with their shut down ( auto landing) residue percentage like 20%,10%,8%,5% etc. and before them I bring the drone low and close to the landing pad or over a grass area, and it will be no damage to the drone even it accidentally falling off ( I had a few times).

 

[AnafiPilot1]

Nothing to do with water.

This is a serious case of hardware / software failure - something decided that the battery level was dangerously low.

Maybe the battery voltage dropped/sagged briefly below some magic level which triggered the critical landing, but the software did not stop the critical land procedure when the battery voltage recovered.

OR Possibly the drone suffered a hardware fault in the motor board, where the load / current is measured - causing the motor board to tell the motherboard 'hey something wrong with the power supply land now'.

Very interesting video, should be of interest to Parrot (if it gets to someone who is bothered or interested!).

Clearly the whole landing period the battery level the drone was measuring stayed around 82%, so the drone firmware should have aborted the landing.

 

[Ana789]

[..] I mark every battery with their shut down ( auto landing) residue percentage like 20%,10%,8%,5% etc. and before them I bring the drone low and close to the landing pad or over a grass area,[...]

good luck with that!

How do you establish the auto landing %tage?
Because that is entirely depending on the height of the bird and the "understanding" of it, how much batterie is still available.

It is a malfunction in the "intelligence", either of the batteries or the bird or both, in case it starts to "autoland", before it starts to RTH!
As long you are NOT interrupting a "Will RTH in x minutes" , there should be a RTH before an auto landing!

And because Parrot is not allowing to interupt the auto landing (like DJI let you do, with left stick up), you won't even find out, how much batterie is still available, shown in FF6 as 10, 20, 40, 80%!

I "checked" my batteries, so I thought, in a full battery hovering event, 3 times 20+ minutes, in 1.5+m height.
All batteries did well till the one digit %
I just forgot, that this looks different, in case the bird is far away and in a greater height!
Just needs longer, to get down.
But I counted on the battery related RTH feature
It just skipped that, like in the video!

And I think, that the FF6 is not getting the relevant in flight batterie info from the bird, too.
So there is a malfunction coded in the fw of the batteries, or/and the bird, somehow.
At least the battery should be able to understand its status.
They are "intelligent", we got told, right?

 

[Ana789]

[...]

Maybe the battery voltage dropped/sagged briefly below some magic level which triggered the critical landing, but the software did not stop the critical land procedure when the battery voltage recovered.

OR Possibly the drone suffered a hardware fault in the motor board, where the load / current is measured - causing the motor board to tell the motherboard 'hey something wrong with the power supply land now'.

[...]

You first point is interesting, but at 80% shown battery level and this close range to HP, to drop that BELOW the "battery related RTH", that must be a very faulty battery!

And your second point: a hardware fault should not be shown as a "critcal battery" reason in the FF6 screen.

 

[jspg]

It just skipped that, like in the video!

This is also my question that why anafi not choosing "RTH" and did the "autoland" when some malfunction, low battery or WIFI interference occurred, I think this is a strange case of the anafi flying, for self protecting, at the end of every flight I bring the drone closer and let it shut down and auto power off and mark the "%" digit for this battery, since all battery's "%" are different, I know which one should come back early next time I fly.

 

[jspg]

But like I wrote: this video should get the owner a "new" one!

If it happened to me, I would rather like Parrot can tell me what the real cause (may be it won't be easy) is and not to send me a new one, they should spend more money on finding out the cause of those "fall off the sky" and stop it happened again, I would like to buy a new one again to fly if I realize the cause (no matter who"s fault is).

 

[AnafiPilot1]

You first point is interesting, but at 80% shown battery level and this close range to HP, to drop that BELOW the "battery related RTH", that must be a very faulty battery!

And your second point: a hardware fault should not be shown as a "critcal battery" reason in the FF6 screen.

While the Anafi firmware is a black box to us engineers, it is however very clear to see from the GroundSDK that the battery level & info comes directly from the battery. Where as the battery related alarms are generated not by the battery but by the Anafi (most likely the motorboard).

The Anafi has only 3 levels of Alarm related to battery related issues. Off - No battery problem, Warning - with delayed autolanding, Critical - autolanding no cancel.

Link to Ground SDK - > Kind Enumeration Reference

We cannot be 100% sure of all the parameters which will cause these alarm conditions to trigger but one of them will be the motor controller complaining about low voltage / very high current to maintain rpm on the motors.

Clearly from the video, once the critical alarm is triggered and the Anafi start the autolanding, software never re-analysed if the conditions for the critical alarm still warranted autolanding - that is something Parrot can look in to.

 

[jspg]

Link to Ground SDK - > Kind Enumeration Reference

But from the Ground SDK, there is no contents of the ".critical" on what is the "critical battery"? so we can put it in the pre-flying check list to avoid the accident happened, does it make sense?

 

[Deleted member 3201]

- The flight started at 96% possibly indicating that the battery was not charged before the flight (or at least close to it)
- the Anafi did the right thing, forced autoland instead of possibly dropping out of the sky entirely, falling on someones head or windshield, crashing the car, etc

 

[Gipsz Jakab]

- The flight started at 96% possibly indicating that the battery was not charged before the flight (or at least close to it)
- the Anafi did the right thing, forced autoland instead of possibly dropping out of the sky entirely, falling on someones head or windshield, crashing the car, etc

Anafi did not do the right thing!
He would have done the right thing if he had done so at 5% and not at 83%.
I tell everyone: there is no need to look for logic in this event because there is no logic in it! This is a malfunction!
Since there has been a notable battery firmware update recently and since then there have been several similar crashes, it is not difficult to realize that the firmware is faulty, not the battery cell itself.

 

[Deleted member 3201]

Anafi did not do the right thing!
He would have done the right thing if he had done so at 5% and not at 83%.
I tell everyone: there is no need to look for logic in this event because there is no logic in it! This is a malfunction!
Since there has been a notable battery firmware update recently and since then there have been several similar crashes, it is not difficult to realize that the firmware is faulty, not the battery cell itself.

Parrot collects crash data, maybe after critical error battery there is always a 90% chance it will fall out of the sky in 30 seconds? You don't know that.

It's always better to auto land then to drop out of the sky

 

[jspg]

The battery "%" showed on the FF6's "drone icon" will not be 100% anymore after several using cycles, even after fully charged (4 lights are off on the battery back), the important is checking the "maximum battery capacity" at the right list under the map when you tap the drone icon on FF6, the new battery will be 100% but afterwards the used battery will show the less "%", I have the used batteries showed "%" around 95-98 after fully charged on the FF6's "drone icon"now, and one of the battery it's "maximum battery capacity" is only 78%.
But I mark every battery about it's shut down (auto power off) "%", so I can bring them back before shut down.

 

[DiscoBeb2anafiuser]

I dont know how to use forums or anything else. BUT. I do have this problem of anafi reporting battery low when percentage is reporting high. And it is high. Becuase I know its a new battery and its charged. And its only been used a couple flights. BUT, even though it WARNS me low or critical and WARNS me its going to return it has not returned or performed a critical landing... it just keeps flying the flight plan and/or responding to the controller and i keep flying for 10 or more minutes at least. Because by the time i get these warnings i am almost to my desitination on my farm where i want to see. So i continue flight. I consider them false alarms. HOWEVER, I have noticed that when anafi returns that the fan is making a noise. It is not spinning full speed but obviously has a bearing issue. One tap on the case and the fan speeds back up and the noise quits. I dont know if these two events are related, batt reporting low and internal fan bearing squeal with reduced rpm. But, I am an EE and it is possible that either the load increase of the fan or the temperature rise of the electronices due to the fan slowing could cause something to cause this strange battery low or critical message. I have ignored these warnings, because i know the status of the batteries i use. At least I believe i do enough to risk the drone. BUT, i have lost a 2 bebop2's and 2 disco's and landed one anafi in the ditch (which took me days to find) so I shouldn't have much confidence at all. But only two of those were battery issues. The rest were expensive lessons. So, wrapping up. I have this battery low reporting issue with percentages as high as 80s percent. I have reset the battery a couple times with no change. I have not had a crtical landing, and it may warn it will return to home in 3 minutes but 2 minutes later it will warn it will return to home in 3 minutes. (Read that again if you think you read it wrong, you didnt) so obviously, anafi can update or postpone its message. I often fly almost to the limit of return to home. I do not know if anafi considers the wind in its calculation as to what energy is required to get back. But my observation is that it may do that. I take it into consideration when im flying it. And its decision is very close to mine. It can go faster on return to home than i can stick it full speed. (Go figure) I do have a fan problem. Its cooler now so im not worried that it will overheat so im not anxious to open anafi and address the fan at this time. Be advised that my drones are not toys. They go where my two legs and/or my eight wheeled tractors cannot. They look at ditches to identify beaver dams or other drainage blockage problems. Flights are pretty much straight and level and almost almost almost always flight plan. I used to be like you guys, smart, clever, adicted to finding the problem, etc.... but crap, now im just old.

 

[Gipsz Jakab]

Parrot collects crash data, maybe after critical error battery there is always a 90% chance it will fall out of the sky in 30 seconds? You don't know that.

It's always better to auto land then to drop out of the sky

You didn't really understand what I was writing.
RTH is a good feature ... Auto landing is also required ...
But all this is not understood when there is an automatic landing with an 83% battery. This is a faulty battery firmware.

 

[ROBANAFI]

Hi,
It’s not mine.
I can’t imagine how this could happen. Critical battery level at more than 80%, then... autolanding

Well this happened to me yesterday on 70% battery and unfortunately i couldn't get the drone back. It started to Autoland an then the screen went blank about 70 metres above some trees, i checked the location but no luck locating it

After nearly 30 months and 26 hours of flight time i'm not mega pissed off. I do think i got my moneys worth and the Anafi was a great first proper drone onto the next one..........

 

[Liger 1956]

Sorry to hear about your loss Rob. I have always been impressed by the photos and videos that you posted. Are the trees near where it went down still in leaf or can you see to the canopy?

 

[ROBANAFI]

Sorry to hear about your loss Rob. I have always been impressed by the photos and videos that you posted. Are the trees near where it went down still in leaf or can you see to the canopy?

Cheers i appreciate that. As for the trees its a bit of both, it went down here: 53°16'22.5"N 2°45'56.0"W The bit that makes it more difficult is the drone losing connection before it hit the trees. The last GPS location might not be as precise but with the dark evenings i need to wait until next weekend to have another look. The battery's are both around 2 years old and they were charged 48 hours before the flight and the drone went down within 5 minutes of take off

 

[Ana789]

Well this happened to me yesterday on 70% battery and unfortunately i couldn't get the drone back. It started to Autoland an then the screen went blank about 70 metres above some trees, [...]

That with the screen sounds to me like a total failure, during autoland.
I can not really say if my screen got black, the last 15m falling, because I was looking to the bird almost over my head. But I would imagine that it happened this way, too