Can the GPS be turned off manually for the H plus?

[samsolpro]

Hi all,

New here. Greetings.

Just started flying the H, loved it. Looking forward to getting the H plus soon.

I had a quick look of the H plus manual, could not find any information about turning off the GPS in it. Considering the "ATTI" or manual mode a must for a drone, will completely turn away from the H plus if I could confirm that. Anyone here can confirm that?

thanks a lot.

Sam

 

[Kev Waite]

You cannot turn off GPS at this time. I am told it should be in the next update. If you lose GPS it will go into ATTI mode a bit like the DJI Mavic.

 

[samsolpro]

Thanks for the reply. Then I ll wait. The function had been there for H and H520. Just wondering why it was taken away for this new release.

 

[0verload]

Thanks for the reply. Then I ll wait. The function had been there for H and H520. Just wondering why it was taken away for this new release.

It's just Yuneec being Yuneec

 

[oliver]

You cannot turn off GPS at this time. I am told it should be in the next update. If you lose GPS it will go into ATTI mode a bit like the DJI Mavic.

I hope , it is a big problem, thank's for the new

 

[PatR]

Switchable GPS was not available with the initial release of the Typhoon H. It did not become available until about the 3rd of 4th firmware update. As the H Plus uses completely different system code it may take a little time to incorporate selective GPS.

In any event, loss of GPS places the aircraft in a mode essentially the same at DJI’s Atti and APM/Pxhawk’s Stabilize modes. It will hover and drift with the wind but you have to act like a pilot and fly it where you want it to go.

 

[fottip]

In any event, loss of GPS places the aircraft in a mode essentially the same at DJI’s Atti and APM/Pxhawk’s Stabilize modes. It will hover and drift with the wind but you have to act like a pilot and fly it where you want it to go.

Exactly right, and that's the reason I don't understand why anyone would WANT it drifting around wherever the wind blows it. Why would that be desirable?

**WITH** GPS, no control input means the drone stays put...period. Lots of reasons why that's good - operator has a chance to take a breath, adjust camera settings, angle, tilt, pan, yada, yada. Defeat GPS, and no control input means the thing wanders wherever winds take it, including into obstacles, trees, etc.

Drifting around wherever the wind takes it - that's desirable? Why? "Acting like a pilot" sounds admirable, but defeating GPS stabilization doesn't make sense.

 

[Ty Pilot]

What if you were to film inside of a large building? What if for some reason your GPS fails? The whole point of having "pilot skills" is to be able to fly the aircraft - when necessary It doesn't mean you can't utilize all of the automated features of these systems, to the contrary; its basically a means to provide an extra layer of insurance against failure of these systems if/when they happen, and they will. There is a saying; "its better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it". Think of it as a free insurance policy. The pages of forums like this one are filled with the not-so-happy-ending exploits of those who have relied solely the aircraft working 100% as advertised only to find it failed to deliver "as advertised". We're at the controls of an aircraft so; acting like a pilot IS admirable to a lot of operators.

 

[PatR]

There are people that do not understand that GPS is the ONLY feature that can fix a multirotor at altitude in position. When fairly low optical sensors can be used for this, IF, the surface it is flying over provides enough texture for it to work.

When GPS fails at altitude they ALL drift with the wind. Blaming a system for doing what it’s supposed to do is like blaming a compass for always pointing north. It’s not the fault of a manufacturer when a customer does not know how to fly.

I fly with GPS turned off all the time with several different models. They will fly faster that way. It still goes where you tell it to, it still hovers at a fixed altitude. If the wind is blowing 5mph and you let go of the sticks it will sit there and drift in the direction of the wind at 5mph, just like a boat will drift in a current.

Where’s the problem?

 

[samsolpro]

Of course we have different levels of flying skills. GPS is great as an equipment to assist flying. It is just like, not exactly the same, autopilot of a full scale aircraft. It helps a lot. However it is not quite acceptable that the pilot in command dose not have the authority to have the GPS or autopilot turned off at will. Yuneec manufactured full scale electric fixed wing aircraft. They should understand that....

 

[oliver]

there are 2 cases that are annoying if we can not cut the GPS, the flight inside and the flight in valleys, where we can not capture the minimum of satellites. It is imperative to be able to cut this function and as quickly as possible.
It must not be too complicated.

 

[NorWiscPilot]

The number one reason all controllers and flight control systems need to incorporate a mechanical toggle switch for GPS activation/deactivation is to provided an instant means to override or deactivate.

When the pilot senses a possible failure (read as: their craft starts moving in a direction not commanded and likely not due to wind or other such influences) it is imperative to have the means for instant and intuitive termination of the suspected control component.

I had such an occurrence the other day with my H520. While in a hover at approximately 15 feet, maybe 20 feet away, the craft suddenly started moving away without command from me.

I had never experienced a flyaway before, but had read of many accounts of such events. My instinctual reaction was to flip the mode switch on the ST16s to full manual, turning off the GPS aided control. I did not have to look at the controller to make this happen.

The H520 slowed its getaway, allowing me to resume control before it became part of the forest. If I had been flying one of my H480s, I doubt I would have had the time to look down for the screen “button” let alone deactivate the GPS. I definitely could not have kept my eyes on the aircraft, thus the greater challenge would have been to visually relocate the craft once I had disabled GPS.

Before anyone blames the H520, some background: it had flown just fine prior to this incident. I had brought it back home and was hovering while playing with the camera settings. I had let it get further under than usual, of my canopy of trees.

I was prepared in case I heard a GPS lost warning. What WAS a surprise is that I did not get the warning and luckily kept checking the craft rather than keeping my head in the controller. Once I saw something unplanned, instincts took over.

Just one example of many supporting not only the need to switch GPS on and off, but also the need for the instantly accessible toggle switch.

Jeff

P.S. Upon further review, I believe solar conditions may have been suspect for the day in question. Somewhere I read that GPS accuracy can be thrown off by a hundred feet or more during such an event. I can only surmise, hopefully correctly, that a combination of things could have occurred, leading the GPS/compass module to think it was not where it thought it was supposed to be.

Hopefully the above makes sense as written.

 

[PatR]

It does. There are a great many valid reasons for GPS to be lost or degraded to a point it’s no longer reliable. Many are unaware of that and place too much dependance on the feature.

I prefer having a means to disable GPS, the only question is how that’s done. Some want a panic button or switch, some prefer a flight mode lacking GPS assist, some are fine with an electronic switch that takes a couple seconds to activate. One thing is certain, no final solution will please 100% of the people.

As for the H fly aways, the true fly aways that have occurred have largely been accompanied by compass errors or failures. I have yet to learn of one that was solely attributed to a GPS loss. Yuneec systems always seem to default to a non GPS, fully controllable mode when GPS, in and of itself, takes a dump. That condition has been consistent from the time of the Chroma, if not before. I can attest to that because the Chroma was prone to frequent short term GPS failures and I had one where I dealt with it frequently. Something I want to repeat for others, when GPS is disabled it is not possible for a multirotor to maintain a stationary hover if any wind is present without the aid of a ground positioning sensor. Even those become useless with altitude gain. One other important note is to never enter RTH mode during a GPS failure.

 

[oliver]

only true in the last 2 posts

 

[Eagle's Eye Video]

KP-Index was at 4 for much of the day yesterday...

Just one example of many supporting not only the need to switch GPS on and off, but also the need for the instantly accessible toggle switch.

What is most annoying is that since the unused AUX switch is already in the hardware it's an easy fix... and to offset the "OMG I had no idea that switch would do that..." crowd, it could easily be required to be enabled in the advanced settings, with a checkbox confirmation.

 

[NorWiscPilot]

UAV Forecast, if memory serves, was showing a more dire outlook for Friday (date of incident 6/22). Visible sat count was iffy.

Then again, if I followed UAV forecast religiously, I’d rarely fly, even after relaxing some of the thresholds.

Jeff

P.S. I still have some post-incident review left to do.

[emoji41]

 

[rdonson]

When I had my flyaway due to loss of GPS it flew off and nothing I did with the sticks had any effect on the aircraft. GPS was lost only for a few seconds. It did not matter. It would not respond to my inputs. I had no time to go to the ST16 to turn off GPS before it found a home 50’ up a pine tree.

I replaced the GPS module and I now keep a very close eye on how the H flies and behaves. Fool me once...

 

[PatR]

I read your description after you first mentioned it. I still feel there was a failure in the FC itself. Your incident was virtually the same as mine, except I received a compass error message just before all control was lost and it took off like a bat out of ****. Mine was only 40’ up a pine tree. Thankfully I had a younger neighbor that volunteered to climb the tree.

A very fortunate thing was the last GPS and altitude position showing on the ST-16 was exactly where it was at. It was then that I learned never to turn off the controller if something had happened without first making notes of the displayed info.

 

[NorWiscPilot]

I read your description after you first mentioned it. I still feel there was a failure in the FC itself. Your incident was virtually the same as mine, except I received a compass error message just before all control was lost and it took off like a bat out of ****. Mine was only 40’ up a pine tree. Thankfully I had a younger neighbor that volunteered to climb the tree.

Hi Pat,

May I ask which post you are referring to? Ron has one just above so I want to confirm.

If you are concerned about the flight controller in my H520, so am I. Only a couple flights on it.

Also, as I described in another thread about the same incident, but left out here, is this: it may be possible all the calibrations had been dumped. The ST16s appears to have reset itself, at least regarding things like imperial versus metric. It was back in metric. I had not flown this machine for about a month.

Thus, I have some additional testing to do.

Thanks!

Jeff

 

[PatR]

Ron’s mention of his fly away. Reviewing your fly away description I feel the same condition is applicable. Something learned over seas; the first system warning we received before losing communications with a bird was GPS lost. Because of that the first thing we did to recover was execute the lost GPS check list. It never worked because other parts of the system had failed but the warnings were set up to trigger lost GPS before anything else. As comms had been lost, which in turn triggered the initial GPS warning it took a few losses to determine we were chasing the wrong rabbit. Anything that showed up in telemetry after the comm loss could not be true unless and until comms were re-established, which could only be verified by comm drop out counts.

As our post incident telemetry with the H generally continue throughout a GPS or compass event unless the battery falls out we can assume we still have flight reporting communications, but lose command and control communications. Losing GPS, a condition where the flight controller is telling to aircraft to “be here” should not tell the aircraft to “go there” when GPS fails. In theory it should be lost and go nowhere if we release the sticks as it has no coordinates to go to.