How does the DJI Phantom Drone detect ground level in fail safe?

Does the DJI Phantom know its own altitude?

Landing DJI Phantom in fail safe above ground level

 

This little segment is a precursor to our soon to be released "going boating" video,  as often the test results are quite different to our expectations and the research we have done produces very mixed results with way too many guesstimates.

 

Clearly when you set the HOME position automatically at ground level on your Phantom, 

it will record it's fail safe position and then off you go. So after reaching 100 feet and sending the unit into fail safe it will return to the GPS co-ordinate you set and land itself. 

 

Our theory is that if you set an elevated home position slightly above ground level, 

the Phantom will hang in the air above water until you can get back to it, 

giving you time for an emergency recovery, if you are racing back in a boat without it taking a swim.

 

So to prove our theory, we put the Phantom up to a new home elevated position 2 metres from the ground. The theory being that when it goes into fail safe it should stop and hover 2 metres from the ground until we either retrieve it or the motors shut down and it just drops like a frozen chicken.

 

See the results from this test on this video

 

We tried this test as the primary home position, the secondary home position and also as a relocated home position and every test was identical.

 

We'd be grateful for your experience to post on our blog so please check out our web site for more tips & tricks and please send through your thoughts or comments, we are always interested to learn more.

 

Please check out our web site for other tips, tricks and techniques and we hope that helps . Happy Flying!

 

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