Flyaway and Crash

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Yesterday I had a flyaway and crash with my Solo1(Green Cube and OpenSolo).

I was coming in for a landing in my backyard while in Fly:Manual. When Solo1 was about a foot from touching down it suddenly took off quickly and I had no control. It ripped into a movie screen that I have against the back of my house and got stuck there.

I fly Solo1, Solo2, and another brand of drone with GPS/Manual mode. I've flown all three the same way since getting into this hobby at Christmas time. This was only my second or third time landing Solo1 in my backyard since installing the Green Cube on Friday.

Photo and bin log attached. Anyone looking at the log file will see that while under the cover of trees I am in Fly:Manual mode and while in the large field/parking lot behind my house I am in Fly mode. The flyaway happened seven minutes into the log. Solo1 was then motionless as it hung on the movie screen until about four minutes later when I returned with a ladder to free it.

What caused Solo1 to flyaway while I was manually landing in Fly:Manual?
If it didn't crash and get hung up, would I have been able to recover control of the flight?
 

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I'll look at the log when I get home later. In the meantime, had you already turned off the controller when this photo was taken. The LEDs are indicating radio loss in the photo.
 
I'll look at the log when I get home later. In the meantime, had you already turned off the controller when this photo was taken. The LEDs are indicating radio loss in the photo.
Yes, I had turned off the controller before taking the picture. Sololink seemed to have been maintained the entire time. I did the emergency shutdown of motors and had a crash report through the app. I'm not sure if Solo shut down motors before I did or if I beat it to it, just a quick reaction on my part once I saw it hanging. It all happened so quick!
 
It looks like a GPS Glitch occurred 7 minutes into the flight.
GPS Failsafe and Glitch Protection — Copter documentation

It should have either tried to land or switched to AltHold. Did you take off from the other side of the house by chance? :)

It flew away in a different direction than where "home" was. Home was established in the corner of the parking lot where I landed and took off for the second segment of the flight. That doesn't mean much because I was so close to the house that GPS signal wasn't reliable and shouldn't have been used while in Fly:Manual and Solo still connected to Controller.
My understanding is that the only way any auto control should take over while in Fly:Manual is if Solo looses connection with the Controller.
 
Major compass problems. Your compass was switching between 1 & 2 repeatedly throughout the flight which is bad. Your vibration is also a little high compared to what it should be. The EKF was on the verge of failing because through the whole flight. When you went under the trees, the GPS glitched and that was the last straw. It couldn't manage it's position and attitude anymore and the house got in the way of it drifting.

Arming and taking off a few feet from your house was pouring gas on the fire due to magnetic interference. And if that patio is reinforced concrete, even more. It may or may not have happened anyway. FIrst thing to do is redo the IMU calibration and then redo the compass calibration. And if you're doing the compass calibration in the same place you took off from in the little pack yard patio, that is specifically recommended against in the instructions. You need to be in an open area away from buildings and interference. Like that huge field next to your house.
 
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Ok. I'm confused. I thought that Fly:Manual was just you and the motors (controlled by the sticks) - like a 3D ice puck. As long as the controller is connected - it's the pilot at the controls. Pitch, Yaw, Roll - in your hands. Why would the compass or the GPS have any impact?

But in this case the FC took over?
 
When you have a bad compass, bad GPS, and bad vibration, it will compromise attitude control, which in the case caused it to drift off.
 
P2P, that makes no sense to me, although I am specifically not doubting you, it just makes no sense. Are you saying that the compass, GPS, and vibration sensors are all used in attitude control? It would seem that you would only need accelerometers for attitude. Please explain...
 
The EKF fuses all the sensors to form a complete picture of the copter's position, attitude, and 3D velocity. When multiple sensors are pushing bad data, there is only so much it can do and eventually something will fail. Combined with a very very bad location to be trying to fly. I'm frankly surprised it flew at all.
 
Calibrations were done in the open field.

Regarding the statement "When you have a bad compass, bad GPS, and bad vibration, it will compromise attitude control, which in the case caused it to drift off." Maybe "drift off" isn't exactly what you meant to say. My Solo did not "drift off". It accelerated up, back, and to the left - all in less than a second. There was no "drift", just acceleration.

I would have video of this, but there is a new shutdown procedure needed when using the Green Cube/Open Solo. Apparently the recording must be stopped before powering down the Solo. I was a little frustrated and confused at the time and simply turned off Solo after removing it from the movie screen. I was able to repair the video, but the last few seconds were lost.

I don't understand why magnetic interference or GPS glitches should have caused the autopilot to take control - I was in Fly:Manual and did not lose the link between the Solo and Controller. I thought that this is what Fly:Manual was for - when you fly in an area that may compromise the accuracy or function of the on-board sensors.

I'll have to fly only in open fields with my Solo drones if there is no mode to use to fly a Solo safely under trees or near structures. I've been doing it for months without problem. I guess it was just coincidence that this occurred on one of my first flights with Green Cube/Open Solo.

Is there another mode or settings that would allow one to safely fly a Solo while near a structure and under the cover of trees?

If it didn't crash and get hung up in the movie screen, would I have been able to recover control of the flight and how (I was already in Fly:Manual)?
 
There isn't a new shutdown procedure for the GoPro. The recording still stops when it disarms. And if you power down while still recording, that does not compromise the video file. The GoPro doesn't care. If the video file was corrupted, that would be a GoPro related problem, probably just from the impact or something. The only thing that doesn't work with the Green Cube and ArduCopter 3.5 is the GoPro power on and power off.

Like I said, this thing had huge problems long before the crash, from the moment you armed and took off and through the entire flight. I am surprised it even flew at all. The final moments in the confined back yard were just the straw that broke the camels back. The end result does not surprise me at all. The vibration and the compass are primarily what stands out as not good. The latter of which is completely shot. You might have a bad compass in the leg? I don't know what else to tell you. It is very obvious by the logs that the thing was on the verge of a nervous breakdown the entire flight, and it snapped. At least it happened there and now out in the field up high where you may not have gotten it back. If it wasn't for the existing problems, the risky confined backyard probably wouldn't have been an issue. The in-flight yaw realignment takes care of that pretty well.

Flying in a confined space like that, whether it is under trees or indoors, requires a lot of considerations. Simply being in manual mode addresses some but not all of them. For example, if the low battery or radio failsafe kicked in, it would switch to RTL and promptly crash into the trees or house. So doing the kind of flying you're doing is a calculated risk. You're doing so hoping none of that happens.
 
Also realize that “Manual” flight in the Solo is far from manual. It is akin to Stabilize in Arducopter. The only difference between that and Fly mode is the copter is not trying to hold GPS position. It is still trying to stay level, hold altitude and compass heading.
 
What the Solo calls Manual is ArduCopter's Alt Hold mode. Stabilize would not maintain altitude.
 
So, based on what I see in the log files and what you are saying, is it accurate to say that the flight controller didn't try to take control of the copter as the "flyaway" occurred? It simply lost control due to the magnetic interference, with other sensor readings also contributing to the confusion.
 
Then I blame this all on my wife!:rolleyes:

Thinking this through to identify the cause (I've flown to/from this location hundreds of times), she had a small folding metal clothes drying rack outside that day! I never thought about it until you brought up magnetic interference. I took off and landed (attempted landing anyway) about five feet from the rack. Until now I would have never thought about it being an issue.
 

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