Overview
Obstacle Avoidance is a critical safety feature that helps your drone sense objects in its flight path, automatically adjusting its trajectory to prevent collisions. It is an electronic "sixth sense" that allows the drone to operate safely, especially in autonomous missions.
What is Obstacle Avoidance?
DJI's obstacle avoidance uses sensors to detect objects in the drone's flight path and measure their distance. The drone's flight control system then automatically slows down, stops, or navigates around obstacles to prevent a collision.
How does this work with DroneDeploy?
In DroneDeploy's Advanced Flight settings (including for Map and Corridor flights), Obstacle Avoidance is an option you can toggle if the drone supports it.
If the drone does not have obstacle avoidance sensors, enabling this setting in the app has no effect.
Obstacle Avoidance is on by default.
Known Limitations
Sensors assist with collision prevention but are not foolproof, and pilots maintain sole responsibility for the safety of the flight. Obstacle avoidance is not 100% reliable.
- There are known cases where false obstacle detection warnings occur, including when there are no obstacles present.
- Environmental factors such as sunlight, fog, reflections, or cloud shadows can cause false triggers.
- Dirty sensors or inconsistent lighting can also cause false triggers.
- Sparse or moving objects like tree branches may be difficult for the sensor to trigger in time.
- The Mavic 3 Enterprise may sometimes trigger false warnings or interruptions due to SDK constraints and DJI firmware behavior.
- The system is under continuous development, and future updates will include more user control.
Best Practices for Obstacle Avoidance Success
To maximize the effectiveness of Obstacle Avoidance, follow these best practices:
- Clean sensors before flight.
- Fly in consistent lighting and avoid strong sun glares.
- Manually fly above your tallest obstacles, and confirm the altitude needed to clear it.
- Increase flight altitude by 10 to 20 feet to reduce sensor sensitivity.
- In some edge cases, disabling obstacle avoidance may be suggested, but this carries greater risk and should only be done when you are certain the area is clear.
- Always fly with caution.
References
- Refer to the Safety Considerations and Avoiding Flyaways article for general flight safety practices.
v2.2