Free Flight "smart" RTH issue

[COH-Engineering]

Right off the top I am going to say that we are newbies so we are learning all the ins and outs on the fly. In this scenario we had been flying in free flight just grabbing some video for an upcoming construction project area. We were monitoring the battery level and had planned on landing the drone at 10%. Since we were in free flight mode it never occurred to us that the RTH feature would still be monitoring battery needed to get back to take off point. We were flying at about 20' above ground when the drone decided it needed to RTH at 13% battery. The drone began to ascend towards the tree canopy overhead. Before the pilot could process what was happening the drone had struck a limb and fell to the ground. So my purpose for this inquiry is to simply ask, am I the only one who is confounded as to why the engineers would kick the drone into program flight mode without turning on the obstacle avoidance protocols as well? Also, the battery seems to have taken the blunt of the impact so it is now showing one green light at the top (furthest from the on/off button) and on red led at the bottom. I have tried the hard reset with no success. Any one know off hand what this particular pattern of led suggests the problem is?

 

[Skydreamer]

There is no “obstacle avoidance protocols”in anafi,only in Anafi AI,…..anafi can not “see” obstacles around it,there are some instances where anafi will try to “move”(when RTH landing) if obstacle is right below anafis “vertical camera” but than again it will try to move just slightly to “any “side,not much help if there is something like tree branches or wall next to it….bringing battery charge that low is more for experienced drone pilots,even i dont go below 30%….it is unfortunate that you crashed you anafi

 

[jspg]

1. Always check the the percentage of the battery most ability (tap the drone icon in the freeflight6), when it shows less than 100%, then be careful not coming back lower than 30-40%.
2. Do not use aftermarket battery, you can't judge the correct percentage of battery power for coming back.
3. Even with the new battery (100% most ability), you should have the drone just as close as to you when the percentage of battery power is under 15%, because it might just landing itself.

 

[COH-Engineering]

There is no “obstacle avoidance protocols”in anafi,only in Anafi AI,…..anafi can not “see” obstacles around it,there are some instances where anafi will try to “move”(when RTH landing) if obstacle is right below anafis “vertical camera” but than again it will try to move just slightly to “any “side,not much help if there is something like tree branches or wall next to it….bringing battery charge that low is more for experienced drone pilots,even i dont go below 30%….it is unfortunate that you crashed you anafi

We are flying the AI drone. We had already watched it navigate a tree canopy on a previous flight so we didn't panic at first, not that we had time to take control before it crashed either way. Thanks for the info on the battery levels. We were walking along with the drone so our plan was to just set the drone down right where it was when it hit 10%, and we were only flying around 15' off the ground due to the overhanging trees.