Early RTH: why do I experience less flight time on a full battery

This article addresses when WingtraOne returns home earlier than expected. In optimal conditions, RTH is triggered when 37% battery is reached. Adaptive RTH can influence this further to ensure safe landings.

This may be confusing for the customer, because we promote that one flight's time is 45 minutes.

Explanation:

With Wingtra software update 1.9.0 we introduced an adaptive RTH. That means the drone calculates when it should return home in order to guarantee a safe landing. It takes into account transition altitude, mission altitude, distance to home and wind. So the percentage of battery life that triggers RTH is calculated based on a combination of battery consumption and the four above-mentioned criteria.

It is designed to guarantee a safe flight up to 3000 meters (9845 ft) above sea level and for temperatures between -10 and up to 40 degrees. If you fly below 3000 meters (9845 ft) the implementation is conservative.

We are aware that this logic needs improvement to ensure maximal flight time for everyone. On the other hand, safety is very important to us and therefore we are currently collecting data to be able to develop a meaningful RTH logic.

To improve battery life, we suggest reducing the transition altitude, if this can be done safely. Reducing the transition altitude will save battery life by shorting the hovering flight mode during takeoff and landing.