Overview

An important component of your pre-flight checklist is understanding emergency behaviors associated with a lost communication link, weak or no GPS signal, and low battery. Even if you have taken every precaution, set a home point, selected your return behaviors, checked the weather and your environment, circumstances can change quickly, understanding emergency behaviors will help you in stressful situations. Several of the emergency behaviors involve Skydio 2/2+ initiating an automatic return to home. The return flight will be dependent on the Return Behaviors that you established pre-flight. Skydio 2/2+ will always ascend before returning to avoid obstacles and retain its current obstacle avoidance setting while returning. 

Quick Steps

To set Return Behaviors

Step 1 - Select the Settings menu Step 2 - Select the Drone tab Step 3 - Select Return Behaviors
Return Height - set the return elevation   the default is 32 ft (9.7 m) Height Behavior Absolute - ascends to the specified Return Height above the launch point before returning.  Relative - ascend to the specified Return Height above the current position before returning.  Return Speed Drone Looks the camera faces towards the home point the camera faces away from home point
Lost Communication  Choose how your want your drone to behave if the signal to your controlling device is lost: Return when Disconnected - toggle Off to disable Return when Disconnected and the Lost Connection menu. Skydio 2/2+ will not return if it loses connection—it will hover until it reaches low battery and land. Wait Before Return - set the amount of time that you want Skydio 2/2+ to wait before it initiates a return flight, allowing time to reconnect. Land Once Returned - when enabled, Skydio 2/2+ will return, hover for a specified amount of time, and then land. Wait Before Land - set the amount of time between 0 to 300 seconds (the default is 240 seconds) that you want Skydio 2/2+ to wait before landing. This setting is only enabled when Land Once Return is toggled on.

 

NOTE: if the drone is actively tracking a subject and the communication link is lost, it will continue to follow the subject for 30 seconds and attempt to regain connection.  If the connection is not established after 30 seconds, Skydio 2/2+ will automatically return to the Home Point (if one was specified) or the last known location of the tracked subject (if no Home Point was specified).

 

In-Depth

Lost Communication Link

A lost link is the loss of communication (uplink and downlink) between Skydio 2/2+ and the ground control system (Enterprise Controller and/or mobile device) that may result in the loss of flight control. 

• • uplink refers to the transmissions of flight command instruction from the ground control system to Skydio 2/2+
  • downlink refers to the transmission of real-time video, telemetry, and sensor data from Skydio 2/2+ back to the ground control system

In the event of a lost communication link or failure of the controlling device, Skydio 2/2+ will automatically return to the Home Point (or Launch Point). You will maintain the ability to customize Lost Connection return behaviors, view the launch point, home point, and last known location on the map. It is absolutely important to maintain visual contact with the drone when a lost link happens. Being able to track the drone and move towards it, if necessary, will make it less likely for the communication link to be restored.

Lost GPS

In the event that the Skydio 2/2+ GPS signal is lost, your drone will continue flying as normal. You will still be able to Return Home and fly to waypoint, but your flight will be less accurate. If Skydio 2/2+ loses GPS while executing a Waypoint mission, Skydio 2/2+ will attempt to fly to each waypoint. At the final waypoint a GPS Lost alert message will display. You can manually pilot the drone and attempt to regain a GPS signal.

If Skydio 2/2+ does not obtain a strong GPS signal (poor or non-existent throughout the flight), you may not be able to set a Home Point, fly to a waypoint, or return to phone/home. If your Return Type is set to Vision, however, you will be able to reliably return to the Launch Point using the vision navigation system. 

NOTE: When Skydio 2/2+ is flying at high altitudes or over large bodies of water, visual positioning becomes more difficult and the drone relies on GPS to assist with lateral positioning. In the event that GPS is lost in such conditions, Skydio 2/2+ lateral positioning will be affected and the drone may initiate an emergency landing.

Low Battery

When Skydio 2/2+ battery is low, there will be a series of notifications and actions to ensure a safe landing:

• • Skydio 2/2+ will assess your altitude and distance from the Home Point, then warn you when it is time to return home. It is recommended to you initiate a return or land at this time, however, you can choose to keep flying.
  • Skydio 2/2+ will then notify you when it has 2 minutes of flight time left based on its current altitude and the battery indicator will begin a two-minute countdown. You may choose to continue flying, however, it is strongly recommended that you fly to a safe location and land.
  • When the two-minute countdown is complete, Skydio 2/2+ will initiate an automatic landing that you will be unable to cancel. You will maintain the ability to nudge the drone in roll, pitch, and yaw to avoid any obstacles.

NOTE: Skydio 2/2+ will not automatically return to the home point when it reaches a low battery. You will receive a low battery notification at which point you will need to command a return using the Return to Home button in the app or on the Skydio 2 Controller.

Recovering a lost drone

In rare cases when control is not re-established or a low battery alert is ignored, your Skydio 2/2+ may land in an unintended location. Take note of the drone’s last location, altitude, and heading information. In the event that your Skydio 2/2+ is lost, you may view its last known location:

Step 1 - Select the INFO menu Step 2 - Select your device name Step 3 - Select Find Drone
if the Coordinate setting is enabled, the latitude and longitude of the current or last known location will be displayed, making it easier for you to locate your lost drone.
To Enable Coordinates on the map Step 1 - Select the Settings menu Step 2 - Select the Phone tab Step 3 - Select On Screen Display

View Last Flight

The View Last Flights feature is designed to assist you with locating your drone in the event of a crash, emergency landing, or low battery landing in an unintended location. 

Step 1 - Select the INFO menu Step 2 - Select your device name
Step 3 - Select View Last Flights review video of the 10 most recent flights

 

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If you have questions or need additional support—feel free to reach out! Skydio Support

 

 

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