Automitic altitude increase when obstacles detected

ArduPlane Plane 4.1
1

I live in mountainous terrain. Trusting ardupilot to keep itself from hitting something (without coping out and setting the altitude really high) seems like a bad idea. Relying on terrain-following to download data from my radio when it may not have reception seems like it is asking for trouble as well.

Why isn’t there a way to incorporate a 2D outdoor lidar or automotive radar sensor to be used for real-time altitude increases when some minimum range threshold is met? It is the same or similar integration as the downward-facing sensors that are already supported for automatic landing. The only difference is one of those supported sensors would be pointed forward instead of down, and the resulting action would be to climb at the max allowed degrees. Is that on the roadmap, or currently supported but I just don’t know about it?

2

Why don’t you download terrain data from https://terrain.ardupilot.org/ and put it in the sd card attached to your FC :slight_smile:

3

Thanks, but it is still much better to have basic, active avoidance vs flying blind.

What if you want to fly low and there is a water tower or cell tower in your path?

What if the flight is 1+ hrs and the barometer drifts a dangerous amount?