PX4 HIL Quadcopter X · 2025-06-16

Flight telemetry summary

Distance Meters

12.2 m

Maximum Altitude AGL

28.8 m

Maximum Ground Speed

4.48 m/s

Minimum Battery Percent

70%

Minimum Battery Voltage

16 V

Minimum GPS Satellites

15

Maximum GPS HDOP

0

Flight Modes

AUTO_TAKEOFF, AUTO_RTL

Maximum Distance From Home Meters

12.6 m

Maximum Distance From Home Time

1m 25s

Average Ground Speed

2.82 m/s

Maximum Climb Rate MPS

3 m/s

Maximum Descent Rate MPS

-1.06 m/s

Voltage Sag

0 V

Flight Mode Seconds

AUTO_TAKEOFF: 1m 23s, AUTO_RTL: 54s

Maximum GForce

6.18 g

EKF Healthy

Yes

Weather at the flight

Source

open-meteo-archive

Sampled At Utc

1970-01-21T06:00Z

Latitude

40.15

Longitude

116.26

Temperature C

-1 °C

Wind Speed MPS

1.84 m/s

Wind Direction Degrees

151

Wind Direction Cardinal

SSE

Weather Code

2

Weather Description

Partly cloudy

AI flight report

This flight lasted 2:17 and covered very little ground — a track distance of just 12 m, with the farthest point from home only 13 m away at 1:25. The vehicle stayed on the ground (altitude near 0 m AGL) through the first 1:15, spent most of that time in AUTO_TAKEOFF, then climbed to a max altitude of 29 m above home by 1:40 while in AUTO_RTL, before descending back down to roughly ground level by 2:15. Given the tiny footprint and short climb, this reads much more like a short hop/test flight than a mission with real distance covered. Weather was cold (-1.0°C) with light wind (1.84 m/s from the SSE), which is unlikely to have been a major factor at these speeds (max ground speed only 4.5 m/s).

The most notable anomaly is at 0:00: an ALTITUDE_DISAGREEMENT warning where barometric and fused altitude estimates disagreed by 59 m, and the derived diagnostics confirm a 59.5 m gap between those two sources at 1:35 — essentially the same size of disagreement persisting well into the flight. Because these are independent altitude estimates, a mismatch this large and this sustained points to one of them being wrong, not just sensor noise. This is worth checking against raw baro/GPS logs, since a fault here could make the "29 m max altitude" figure less trustworthy than it looks. Separately, the peak motor output hit 1790 µs on motor 3 at 1:36, and the widest motor spread (408 µs) occurred shortly after at 1:40 — both landing right in the climb/RTL transition. A brief spread during a mode change and altitude change is normal, but 1790 µs is close enough to the 2000 µs ceiling that it's worth watching if longer or heavier flights are planned, since there wouldn't be much control authority in reserve.

Battery and GPS were not limiting factors here: battery stayed flat at 70%/16.0 V for the whole flight, and satellite count held at 15 throughout — both suspiciously static, which itself is a little odd for a real flight (values essentially not changing sample to sample) and worth a sanity check on whether battery/GPS telemetry was actually updating or just logged at a fixed value.

Two concrete recommendations: first, resolve the baro-vs-fused altitude disagreement (59 m at 0:00, 59.5 m at 1:35) before trusting altitude-based automation on this vehicle — pull the raw baro and GPS-altitude channels for this flight and see which one is drifting. Second, keep an eye on motor 3's approach toward 1790 µs during the 1:36–1:40 window; it's not clearly a problem on this short flight, but it's the kind of pattern (one motor working harder than the others right as altitude/mode changes) that's worth flagging if it recurs on a longer flight where there's less margin to spare.

Detected flight events

1. 0s — Barometric and fused altitude disagree by 59 m

   Barometric and fused altitude disagree by 59 m

2. 0s — Flight mode changed to AUTO_TAKEOFF

   Flight mode changed to AUTO_TAKEOFF. The pilot or autopilot switched control behavior here.

3. 0s — Vehicle armed

   Motors armed — the flight controller accepted the arming request and the flight officially begins here.

4. 1m 23s — Flight mode changed to AUTO_RTL

   Flight mode changed to AUTO_RTL. The pilot or autopilot switched control behavior here.

5. 1m 25s — Takeoff (altitude threshold)

   Liftoff at 2 m. The aircraft leaves the ground and starts its climb.

6. 1m 38s — Maximum ground speed: 4.5 m/s

   Maximum ground speed: 4.5 m/s — the fastest the aircraft moved over the ground.

7. 1m 40s — Maximum altitude: 29 m above home

   Maximum altitude: 29 m above home — the highest point of this flight.