Mini 3 night drift.

[OldGuy]

Flew my Mini3 in the dark from my garden last night and immediately noticed that it was drifting. It was only a couple of meters off the ground but moving slowly towards some trees. I increased the height to around 10 meters but it continued to drift sometimes forwards sometimes backwards and also side to side. I had 14 satellites on the remote so it wasn’t a GPS problem. As the area I took off from was dark then it could only be the “downward vision system” not functioning correctly due to the low light. However I thought that the GPS with 14 satellites would keep it in one position and not let it drift?

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Low down the VPS holding is the primary position holder, without enough light it relies on GPS position holding. GPS position holding is nowhere near as accurate.
If you had illuminated the ground beneath the drone with a strong torch I would bet the drifting would stop.
I see the same thing with my non mini 3 drones.

 

[OldGuy]

Low down the VPS holding is the primary position holder, without enough light it relies on GPS position holding. GPS position holding is nowhere near as accurate.
If you had illuminated the ground beneath the drone with a strong torch I would bet the drifting would stop.
I see the same thing with my non mini 3 drones.

Thanks YP I'll give it a try.

 

[MS Coast]

I think @Yorkshire_Pud is right on target about the VPS needing more light. Let us know how your test goes. (It's nice that the Air 2S and Mavic 3s switch on their auxiliary lights when landing.)

With respect to the satellite count, 14 usually seems to be adequate. But remember to check the quality of the GPS position, too, and not just the number of satellites. The color of the satellite icon and satellite count numerals goes from red to orange to white as position quality improves. The home point is established only after the icon and numerals go white.

 

[OldGuy]

I think @Yorkshire_Pud is right on target about the VPS needing more light. Let us know how your test goes. (It's nice that the Air 2S and Mavic 3s switch on their auxiliary lights when landing.)

With respect to the satellite count, 14 usually seems to be adequate. But remember to check the quality of the GPS position, too, and not just the number of satellites. The color of the satellite icon and satellite count numerals goes from red to orange to white as position quality improves. The home point is established only after the icon and numerals go white.

Thanks for the info on satellites. I may attempt another flight tonight with ground lights.

 

[3rdof5]

First, I'm not sure which mini 3 (pro or non pro) you have but in either case it's irrelevant, in low light obstacle avoidance is off so the drifting issue would apply to either model.
In my experience, a drifting issue is never about GPS and always about compass issues, which I have experienced in the exact same area with 3 very different models and it affected all of them exactly the same way in which they kind of oscillated in a circular hover over a problem area. All 3 aircraft in my signature have done this so it's not tech specific, it's a real issue.
I have no explanation but I do know whenever I takeoff in this location (my backyard) to be ready for this behavior. Mostly it doesnt happen.

 

[OldGuy]

Low down the VPS holding is the primary position holder, without enough light it relies on GPS position holding. GPS position holding is nowhere near as accurate.
If you had illuminated the ground beneath the drone with a strong torch I would bet the drifting would stop.
I see the same thing with my non mini 3 drones.

Flew again last night with the landing pad flood lit. All good the Mini 3 was stable so problem solved. Cheers.

 

[OldGuy]

I think @Yorkshire_Pud is right on target about the VPS needing more light. Let us know how your test goes. (It's nice that the Air 2S and Mavic 3s switch on their auxiliary lights when landing.)

With respect to the satellite count, 14 usually seems to be adequate. But remember to check the quality of the GPS position, too, and not just the number of satellites. The color of the satellite icon and satellite count numerals goes from red to orange to white as position quality improves. The home point is established only after the icon and numerals go white.

Flew again last night with flood lit landing pad and all ok no drifting. Had 18 satellites to begin with increasing to 20 and all white! Cheers.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

The thing to do would be switch the lighting off and on and off and on etc. and check whether or not the stability/ instablility corresponds to on/off.

When the drone gets high and loses VPS I suspect that it is too high for us to notice the drift that is evident low down.

 

[OldGuy]

The thing to do would be switch the lighting off and on and off and on etc. and check whether or not the stability/ instablility corresponds to on/off.

When the drone gets high and loses VPS I suspect that it is too high for us to notice the drift that is evident low down.

I am sure that you are correct. I will switch the light off the next time I fly at night and see what happens. I should have thought to do that last night!

 

[JimSteadman]

I have had this happen more than once and have concluded as did Yorkshire Pud that the issue is whether the ground is well lit. It is particularly and issue when the area you are flying over is well lit, but as you bring the drone back there is an unlit area where you want to manouver into a good landing approach. I try to avoid flying at night in areas where this applies.

 

[Mr500CM]

Flew my Mini3 in the dark from my garden last night and immediately noticed that it was drifting. It was only a couple of meters off the ground but moving slowly towards some trees. I increased the height to around 10 meters but it continued to drift sometimes forwards sometimes backwards and also side to side. I had 14 satellites on the remote so it wasn’t a GPS problem. As the area I took off from was dark then it could only be the “downward vision system” not functioning correctly due to the low light. However I thought that the GPS with 14 satellites would keep it in one position and not let it drift?

I had a similar issue with drifting, a compass and IMU calibration corrected the issue.

 

[OldGuy]

I had a similar issue with drifting, a compass and IMU calibration corrected the issue.

I did a compass calibration but not an IMU calibration. However I think that Yorkshire_Pud solved the problem by suggesting that I light the take off area which worked ok and cured the drifting.

 

[rjwmorrell]

The Air 2S solves this problem by providing its own downward white light to illuminate the landing area. I'm getting a Mini 3 soon (took advantage of the recent sale) so if I do any night flying I'll have to factor this into the equation. I'm not sure how I would best illuminate my landing pad but I'm glad I found this thread, so I'm at least aware of the issue!

 

[Richard1970]

To illuminate landing pad use a battery lamp like this

Amazon.co.uk

 

[OldGuy]

To illuminate landing pad use a battery lamp like this

Amazon.co.uk

Thanks for that. I already have a similar one which I used on my second attempt as mentioned previously on the 24th August. They work really well and light the area up.

 

[kevguy]

Flew my Mini3 in the dark from my garden last night and immediately noticed that it was drifting. It was only a couple of meters off the ground but moving slowly towards some trees. I increased the height to around 10 meters but it continued to drift sometimes forwards sometimes backwards and also side to side. I had 14 satellites on the remote so it wasn’t a GPS problem. As the area I took off from was dark then it could only be the “downward vision system” not functioning correctly due to the low light. However I thought that the GPS with 14 satellites would keep it in one position and not let it drift?

Is 14 satellites your norm amount? Isn’t that kinda low? I always get 26-30 satellites.

 

[OldGuy]

Is 14 satellites your norm amount? Isn’t that kinda low? I always get 26-30 satellites.

If you look further back on this thread you will see that on my second attempt at flying at night I had 20 satellites. During the day I typically have around 24. I don't know if there is a difference in the number of satellites overhead depending on whether it's day or night?