Dragon7 created the video below to show what happens when you continue to fly the Mavic Pro, Mavic Air or Mavic 2 Pro (and likely most other DJI drones) after the critically low battery level has been reached. It’s interesting to see how the drones eventually ignore the throttle up command and complete the landing. If he had been flying higher, I’m assuming the throttle up commands would have been ignored at a much higher altitude.
I believe the the trigger to the final forced landing is still any single cell voltage dropping below 3.0V, rather than any inteligent algorithm measuring height above the launch point. In the past, it would simply shut off the battery in flight when that happened. Now, it apparently allows you to descend in place until it lands, or until the battery power is no longer insufficient to sustain flight, in which case it would free fall, allowing you to still try and catch it, if you are brave enough, or foolish enough, to try!
Here are the results from the video above:
Mavic Platinum Pro: 3.51V (critically low); 2.99V (auto landed); 2.89V (battery shut off)
Mavic Air: 3.59V (critically low); 3.03V (auto landed); 2.24V (battery shut off)
Mavic 2 Pro: 3.61V (critically low); 3.00V (auto landed); 2.5V (battery shut off)
The drones were all flying very low in this test. Had he been flying at a high altitude like 500 meters (for example), I don’t think any of these drones would have made it to the ground if they started landing at around the 3.0V mark.
Agreed. I was only meaning that the landing trigger was the less than 3.0V rather than the low elevation and less than 3.0V. I suspect that the forced landing would not be initiated at a higher lowest cell voltage value than 3.0V even if at a higher altitude. Since the aircraft would drop like a rock if the voltage couldn’t sustain flight until it descended fully from a much higher height, best not to test it!