While I am new to Arduplane/APM I have been flying FPV for several years with autopilots/pilot assist units. I have been playing with waypoints and AUTO mode and have become concerned about fly-away possiblities if I mess up....the one of the intended purposes of using the newer geofencing capabilites I am imagine....
but I have found it relatively complex and its an absolute coordinate style fence....what I really would have liked to have seen in the software, like in some other OSDs/autopilots, is a simple relative circular geofence...ie if set to non-zero, if the plane goes further than x meters from the current home in any direction, RTH is triggered until overriden by a purposeful switch from AUTO to some other mode....
this would prevent fly-aways anytime an accidental entry into a wrong set of WPs(like I forgot I'm at a different field and didnt zero out the loaded WPs)...of course one may say, "well, just enter FS and RTH if it gets too far away"....true, but that would prevent setting AUTO as the FS mode for flying a course behind tall objects where radio contact may be momentarily lost....using a distance setpoint geofence induced RTH would provide additional safety and a simple relative one could be a "set and forget" type item in the parameters list...again, one might say just DONT DO THAT...but whats the point of autonomous flight capabilities if you cant play with it being autonomous?
anyway, something I would have liked to have seen in such an otherwise super capable system...
Replies
yes, it's a good idea. Please add it as an issue! It should be quite easy to implement.
Cheers, Tridge
Yes, arducopter works like you suggest with a "tin can" shaped fence. i imagine that eventually we will have both types in both copter and plane. feel free to add it to the issues list. in order to get it actually done it'll take getting a developer to get interested and add it. Tridge does the bulk of the dev but there are others too.