A Winter Question

[Nosebump]

With snow blanketing a good portion of the North and Northeast, my curiosity got the best of me. Snow, beside being bright in the sun, will remove most visual clues that I suspect a drone uses for positioning (-Much like water). If we fly in the winter and in snow-covered conditions, will a drone have difficulty navigating, and could it fall into the trap of uncontrolled descending?

 

[Deleted member 103366]

I don't see how it would confuse GPS but various DJI manuals do warn about low flights over snow and VPS comes into play when flying low.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

My MPP wanders a little more side to side and up/down when a few feet of the snow. I’ve never had it do an uncontrolled descent. My M2P is far more stable in snow. But no descent to the ground.

 

[old man mavic]

@Nosebump as long as you stay above 35ft of the snow covered ground then the GPS will keep the drone in position

 

[WJbdB]

Yesterday I made several low level flights over snow in full sunlight. Flying at a moderate speed 25km/h (~7m/s) the M2P maintained altitude. At ~36km/h (10m/s) the M2P lost altitude rather fast. My impression is that at lower speed the camera´s can distinguish the small dents in the snow causing small shadow-spots. Keeping the altitude at and over 3m enabled full speeds in p-mode. Didn´t test s-mode speeds.

 

[Deleted member 133794]

@Nosebump as long as you stay above 35ft of the snow covered ground then the GPS will keep the drone in position

Can you explain the 35ft height mentioned please OMM. Is GPS less accurate
under that height

 

[Kilrah]

The point is that over that height the downwards camera the OP is concerned about is no more used.

 

[old man mavic]

Can you explain the 35ft height mentioned please OMM. Is GPS less accurate
under that height

above around 35ft as @Kilrah said , the downwards pointing sensors are not being used for holding height or position just the barometer and the GPS

 

[Steve F]

above around 35ft as @Kilrah said , the downwards pointing sensors are not being used for holding height or position just the barometer and the GPS

This would also explain a behavior I have seen when flying over snow.
A couple of weeks ago while flying over a snow covered frozen lake I descended to about 15 ~ 20 feet above the surface to get some more dramatic footage. But I noticed the drone started dropping in altitude in a rather unexpected manner. I quickly increased the elevation to about 50 feet and noted the flight from then on stayed level and behaved in an expected manner.

 

[SpitFire]

Welcome to the forum from Chicago the very cold and Windy City right now .
Good info, and also if you want to do a Query on the search function, about the DVPS, just type in Downward Vision Positioning System from other pilots over the years its great to just search thru all the experiences.

 

[Deleted member 133794]

above around 35ft as @Kilrah said , the downwards pointing sensors are not being used for holding height or position just the barometer and the GPS

Thanks OMM, something else i've learned. ????