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Mavic Air 2 drifting on its own - no wind

kangarootbot

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Today I had a strange experience with my MA2. It started drifting to the right and slightly upwards on its own. I was not touching the sticks at all, and there was minimal wind. I am wondering if this is a known issue, or if anyone has any insight into what may cause this.

Notes:
  • Drone flew perfectly fine last week, this is a new issue
  • There was quite a large cloud of dust on takeoff - maybe the rotors or gimbal were affected? When I got home I inspected it and it was dusty but no damage
  • I took off from a cliff overlooking a river. I sent the MA2 over the river, about 20 feet straight ahead and descended about 15 feet
  • I went into video mode and flew slowly along the river for about 2 minutes. Max distance was about 300 feet
  • I stopped flying, turned around to take some photos, and that's when I noticed the strange behavior. This is about the 3 minute mark.
  • The drone was moving slowly to the right and upwards on its own. It felt like the stick on the controller was stuck in that direction (like an broken PS2 controller or something), but it seems completely fine.
  • There was minimal wind.
  • Based on my recollection, signal was fine.
  • I immediately brought it back for landing. It was a struggle to fly the drone. It felt like I was battling it to bring it home.
Uploaded Flight Log here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Thanks in advance for any insights!
 
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Considering that you stood & hovered close (within the reach of the VPS sensors) to rapid flowing water ... this is perfectly normal.

1627032134412.png

As seen here below from the manual the most accurate hover horizontal wise is when ground below the drone is within the reach of the VPS sensor (closer than 30m), which you were.

1627031832273.png And if that ground is moving it will trick the sensor & the horizontal hold will be erratic ...

1627031948296.png
 
Today I had a strange experience with my MA2. It started drifting to the right and slightly upwards on its own. I was not touching the sticks at all, and there was minimal wind. I am wondering if this is a known issue, or if anyone has any insight into what may cause this.

Notes:
  • Drone flew perfectly fine last week, this is a new issue
  • There was quite a large cloud of dust on takeoff - maybe the rotors or gimbal were affected? When I got home I inspected it and it was dusty but no damage
  • I took off from a cliff overlooking a river. I sent the MA2 over the river, about 20 feet straight ahead and descended about 15 feet
  • I went into video mode and flew slowly along the river for about 2 minutes. Max distance was about 300 feet
  • I stopped flying, turned around to take some photos, and that's when I noticed the strange behavior. This is about the 3 minute mark.
  • The drone was moving slowly to the right and upwards on its own. It felt like the stick on the controller was stuck in that direction (like an broken PS2 controller or something), but it seems completely fine.
  • There was minimal wind.
  • Based on my recollection, signal was fine.
  • I immediately brought it back for landing. It was a struggle to fly the drone. It felt like I was battling it to bring it home.
Uploaded Flight Log here: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

Thanks in advance for any insights!
Did you have GPS / satellite connection and the drone stated "Homepoint has been set?" If not, then you were flying in ATTI mode due to no GPS signal and the drone can and does kind of what it wants in ATTI mode. Yes, it will drift and do other weird things since GPS connection sets up the stabilization you are most used to.

Highly suggest you practice ATTI skills, as it seems you fly in location like I do with little to no GPS signal until you climb up outside of the obstructions and get clear view of sky. You can climb up to the 98 foot level that DJI allows and maybe get GPS lock; yet if you drop back down it is easy to lose said GPS lock and be right back in ATTI mode. Happens to me all the time due to tree cover / etc. If you practice some, then you'll be less likely to react aggressively when the drone goes into ATTI and you send it off into trees or whatever else you are flying in.

Lots of YouTube videos I'd also highly suggest watching - esp from "basics" on up as it seems yo are new at least to the drone you have.
 
Did you have GPS / satellite connection ... If not, then you were flying in ATTI mode due to no GPS signal...
When the drift occurred the AC was nowhere near ATTI mode ... in below chart I've placed the marker where the drift happens, 11 sats & gps level 4/5.

But can see that this flight started without a home point being recorded ... that happens at 25sec into the flight (slightly darker green background in the chart = no home point. The green star in the sat pic marks the recorded home point).

Between 85-98sec ATTI weren't far away though ... gps level 1/5.

1627056369972.png

1627056797551.png
 
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Considering that you stood & hovered close (within the reach of the VPS sensors) to rapid flowing water ... this is perfectly normal.

View attachment 132244

As seen here below from the manual the most accurate hover horizontal wise is when ground below the drone is within the reach of the VPS sensor (closer than 30m), which you were.

View attachment 132242 And if that ground is moving it will trick the sensor & the horizontal hold will be erratic ...

View attachment 132243
Great, thank you for the in depth reply.

Based on your 2 messages, my takeaway is that the behavior was normal/expected based on how close I was flying over running water. At one point in the flight, the GPS was low and ATTI was close, but that did not trigger and had nothing to do with the unusual hovering behavior. It was strictly due to the flowing water.

In the future I will just need to keep that in mind, or avoid hovering that close to running water.

Thanks!
 
Based on your 2 messages, my takeaway is that the behavior was normal/expected based on how close I was flying over running water. At one point in the flight, the GPS was low and ATTI was close, but that did not trigger and had nothing to do with the unusual hovering behavior. It was strictly due to the flowing water.

In the future I will just need to keep that in mind, or avoid hovering that close to running water.
To clarify things ...
Your drone has two systems to help it hold horizontal position: GPS and the VPS sensors.
GPS requires a good spread of satellites and doesn't work well if you fly in a narrow valley or under tree cover, where a significant portion of the sky is blocked out.
VPS works well if the drone is within the VPS sensors limited range, the lighting is good and the surface below is suitable (running water isn't)

Because of where you flew, the drone had poor GPS for part of the flight.
The GPS health dropped below 4/5 between 84.4 sec and 98.5 seconds so GPS was not able to provide horizontal position holding for that time.
You were within VPS range of the water below but there's no solid pattern for the sensors to lock onto, so they couldn't help with position holding either.

If you'd had good GPS or good VPS, the drone would have maintained a stable hover.
But with both systems unable to help that results in the drone drifting.
 
Great, thank you for the in depth reply...
...If you'd had good GPS or good VPS, the drone would have maintained a stable hover.
But with both systems unable to help that results in the drone drifting.
Adding in with some more facts from the log ...

@kangarootbot ... in your flight you had 2 instances where a hover would have been erratic regarding horizontal hold.

1. Where you nearly fell back to ATTI 2 times between 84 & 98sec ... as seen here below the sat lock momentarily dropped to 7 & by that the navhealth went to 1/5.

But this incident went by unnoticed as you where in a forward/ascending flight ... but if you had been in a hover there you certainly have had a horizontal drift worse than the drift you had later in the flight (at 147sec) because here you had no proper horizontal assistance from neither the GPS or the VPS (due to moving water).

1627295741520.png

The 2 nearly ATTI occasions happens here very close to the trees ...

1627295806735.png

2. The occasion at 147sec where you actually hovered, explained in post #2 & #4 ... there you had GPS support with 11 satellites & navhealth 4/5 but here the VPS had a hard time to assist due to the moving & reflective surface beneath. The drift around the hover location was within those +/- 1,5m stated in the manual where horizontal hold is made only by the GPS.
 
Last edited:
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To clarify things ...
Your drone has two systems to help it hold horizontal position: GPS and the VPS sensors.
GPS requires a good spread of satellites and doesn't work well if you fly in a narrow valley or under tree cover, where a significant portion of the sky is blocked out.
VPS works well if the drone is within the VPS sensors limited range, the lighting is good and the surface below is suitable (running water isn't)

Because of where you flew, the drone had poor GPS for part of the flight.
The GPS health dropped below 4/5 between 84.4 sec and 98.5 seconds so GPS was not able to provide horizontal position holding for that time.
You were within VPS range of the water below but there's no solid pattern for the sensors to lock onto, so they couldn't help with position holding either.

If you'd had good GPS or good VPS, the drone would have maintained a stable hover.
But with both systems unable to help that results in the drone drifting.
legend... thank you... very clear
 
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