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Crash and Flight log - review inconclusive

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Our Typhoon H+ crashed, indoors, with no apparent reason. the pilot said it climbed and kept climbing till it hit a ceiling in a warehouse. He said the stick controls were unresponsive to bring it down.
I retrieved the flight logs and viewed them, but nothing stuck out. Attached is the complete flight log in a zip.

any review and thoughts are appreciated. Im scratching my head on this....f_mode changed, but everything else looked OK until pitch and roll started wacking out about 2 seconds before the crash.

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Attachments

  • Telemetry.zip
    23.6 MB · Views: 12
Is the crash the flight on 27 April?

That file does show the mode of flight switching to IPS mode which is proper for indoor flight. The maximum altitude shown is under 3 meters.
What was the lighting like in the warehouse? Without proper lighting the Flow camera cannot stabilize the aircraft properly. I am seeing throttle down to lower the aircraft without much response, but it was not held there like trying to make the aircraft come down.

I'll take more of a look a bit later today.
 
Thanks, I appreciate the initial review...

Yes your correct, it the last flight (81) on April 27.
The indoor lighting was typical florescent tube lighting and appeared fully on and adequate.
the pilot said he tried to lower the aircraft, but that it would not respond. Here was his message

"After charging the battery and controller, I decided to set up and do a short test flight indoors at Filley in the main warehouse area as that was free from a lot of obstacles that are usually present. I assembled the drone and checked all propellers and the body. I then placed it on the floor in the middle of the area and powered on the controller followed by the drone. Once everything was powered up properly and the camera was operational I pushed the button to start the propellers. It beeped instead of switching on, so I checked over all settings on the controller as well as made sure the propellers were secure. I did notice some of the switches on the controller were in the wrong position so corrected that and it fixed the issue. Once it was switched on I observed it idling for a bit to ensure all systems were go before taking off and hovering for a few seconds and then doing some small maneuvers like side to side and a 360 degree rotation in place. I started to fly it down the “runway” when Jay walked out from the side so I immediately landed.

While keeping it in idle mode with the propellers spinning, I chatted with Jay briefly about the drone and decided to lift off again to fly it back to my starting point. It was at this time I noticed it was behaving erratically so decided to land it again. It would not respond to the controller commands for up and down, although I could seemingly maneuver it side to side. I kept pressing down full stick but it continued upwards toward the ceiling. It eventually struck the ceiling and fell down landing on the top of the yellow scaffolding next to our lab.

The drone then switched off on its own on top of the scaffolding. Once we got a ladder up there I discovered that the battery had come out as a result of the crash, which is why it switched off."


Since the pilot took off on a concrete floor, I was wondering how the Typhoon could register a negative altitude of over a meter later in the flight, before taking off again
and crashing into the ceiling....there is no way it could have dipped this much.

Much appreciated.
dfd
 
This is not a Typhoon H+. It's the old H480 with RealSense. The data did not show the described behavior. Maybe this is a problem with the sensors and altitude may be wrong recorded. I can't believe the warehouse is only 2m high. As DM said the actions of the pilot were not very consequent and end up in hectic at the end. The sticks are limited to 90%, probably due to speed slider.

The strangest thing here is the voltage. The battery seems to be not the best. It drops fast to 50% but goes up and keep constant value of 16,1V for most of the time. This is unusual. The only explanation may be than the done was idle on the ground during this period. If so then the second start at 09:56:41 went wrong due to drastic drop of voltage. I can imagine that RealSense is delicate about voltage.

I do not recommend to use this battery further.

br HE
 
Thank Your for your review.
I saw the battery drop down to the 14v level. Would that be enough to trigger a "return to home" and cause it to climb?
RTH was likely set for outdoors (150ft).
You are correct, the warehouse has 30 foot ceilings and is very wide, large, and open, thats why the pilot flew there.
We ask pilots to start up their drones once a month, to make sure things work, so, this is what he was doing....a simple "Fit4Service" test.

At only 7 minutes, I thought that was a little too soon for RTH to be triggered. The pilot cited no issues with voltage or flight time remaining.
We do have 2 of 4 batteries that are a little puffy, but not too bad. They appear to charge fine and give near 100% when installed.
I flew this one for almost a year before handing it off....never had issues with it.

thanks for taking a look.
dfd
 
I saw the battery drop down to the 14v level. Would that be enough to trigger a "return to home" and cause it to climb?

At only 7 minutes, I thought that was a little too soon for RTH to be triggered. The pilot cited no issues with voltage or flight time remaining.
I believe RTH is disabled in IPS mode. No GPS to use.

Was this the first time flying in this particular warehouse? Does the floor have enough color pattern for the IPS to use? (Is it plain concrete?)

You mentioned the battery was out when it was found. Was the battery latch damaged or any evidence of sharp impact near the latch area?
 
the floor is solid grey, no pattern.
there was no impact anywhere to the drone before drifting up and contacting the ceiling...

thx, dfd
 
Couple of random questions to try to find the right path:
1.) Did IPS kick in automatically or was it initiated manually?
2.) The logs show stick movement, but they do not show if the stick movement was being converted to an actual signal. Was the "final output display" checked to ensure the controller is actually transmitting anything?
3.) Again, had the drone been flown in that warehouse before? (or in similar circumstances)
 
RTH is not visible in flight mode. I don't believe that RTH was raised.

Regarding the battery: If voltage drops down to an equivalent to 55% capacity in 20s then I think the battery (or at least one cell) is bad. Such voltage drops when power is consumed and it goes up again in idle are usually an indicator of bad batteries. That's why I always recommend to have a look on flight logs as post flight check after a flight day, especially the voltage and error flags.

Examples:
2021-04-03 23-06-45en.png

br HE
 
Couple of random questions to try to find the right path:
1.) Did IPS kick in automatically or was it initiated manually?
2.) The logs show stick movement, but they do not show if the stick movement was being converted to an actual signal. Was the "final output display" checked to ensure the controller is actually transmitting anything?
3.) Again, had the drone been flown in that warehouse before? (or in similar circumstances)
IPS kicked on automatically,

final output display was not checked, the stick movement was part of the flight test to insure good connection between controller and drone.

drone was tested indoors before.

thanks, hope this helps.
dfd
 
IPS kicked on automatically,

final output display was not checked, the stick movement was part of the flight test to insure good connection between controller and drone.

drone was tested indoors before.

thanks, hope this helps.
dfd

IPS kicked on automatically,
Good. That eliminates one thought track.

final output display was not checked, the stick movement was part of the flight test..
The difference between Hardware Monitor and Final Output has shown up here before. If everything is working properly, the two displays seem to be showing the same thing, and Hardware Monitor is much easier to read. But they are not nearly the same thing. The difference shows up when there is an internal problem with the controller. If you will check the Final Output it may at least eliminate some firmware/setup concerns. (may still have to consider some hardware issues)

drone was tested indoors before.
"Indoors" in general, or "Here" (same warehouse or very similar)? I don't have experience with IPS. But I can compare your description of the floor, ceiling height, and an impression of a relatively empty space with the Cautions described in the Users Manual. The manual makes that particular location sound like the poster child for "Don't fly IPS here". I also am not aware that IPS having problems will cause problems with manual control. I'm just trying to narrow down some possibilities. A clear statement would help. It would also be helpful if other members with real IPS experience could help us out by adding some real-life experience to something I am only reading out of a book.
 
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I looked through the flightlogs of other airborne flights with this aircraft and ground station and found NO other flights that used the IPS mode, so if this had been used in the warehouse previously it would have been using the Angle mode with GPS as I found no evidence of Angle mode without GPS.

From looking at other flights in Google Earth Pro I see that you are located in the southern part of lower Michigan. I would be happy to take a look at the system for you. Is this property of the State of Michigan? Let me know.
 
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