Orlando Drone Show Goes Horribly Wrong as Out of Control UAVs Hit the Crowd at Full Speed – Seriously Injured 7-Year-Old Boy Is Recovering After Heart

[djwak59]

this is "political" - I said something similar about the fed admin and got called out privately. But to actually respond - with their "tilt" this comment really doesn't make sense.

Maybe it won’t, maybe it will.
We’ll have to wait and see what this event might have on “local” laws and regulations. Still, it’s just MY 2 cents.

 

[eEridani]

My initial suspicion is a technical cause: simple and well understood RF interference. Effectively, mix a bunch of Tx-Rx together in a narrow band - we are talking 2000 radio pairs in very close proximity - intermodulation and loss of frequency lock is possible, even probable. Add a cityscape with wireless infrastructure (cell, other wifi, other high power comm).

If on the other hand all the drones in a show are using the same channel, receiving commands sequentially, and never have to Tx a reply (sort of anti-Remote ID) - drone-drone interference might not be the cause (there's still that wireless infrastructure to worry about). But one producer of drone shows says this: Multiple radios operating in different frequency bands ensure communications are always maintained during flight. Which brings up the other likely thing: when a drone loses lock and "redundantly" switches channels, the milliseconds it takes to reconnect with the base can be important if a fleet move is happening.

In a desert a show might not expect as many issues; in a city? I find the likelihood of a show happening without losing drones pretty low.

 

[hank970]

I suggest that everyone take a moment to read the Wikipedia article about "precordial thump," a rarely successful procedure in which an impact to the chest is intended to restore a heart's normal electrical activity and rhythm. Such an impact, in fact, can induce a small electrical current or shock. Apparently, the procedure is problematic because the shock can also have the opposite effect and upset a normal heart rhythm. Back in the day, I took a number of first aid courses where precordial thumps were a topic of discussion.

You've probably seen the technique simulated on TV in numerous fictional medical dramas, where a heroic first responder or emergency physician, in a last-ditch effort to save a life, and without immediate access to a defibrillator, makes a fist and pounds a failing patient's chest in an effort to revive them. On TV, of course, it's always successful. In real life, it isn't.

Is it possible that the drone struck the boy with sufficient force to deliver the equivalent of a precordial thump -- to "shock" his heart? Give the kid's distraught mom and her layman's understanding and interpretation of the situation a break. Whatever the effects of the impact, the boy's hospitalization wasn't frivolous.

 

[Photo Booth]

I suggest that everyone take a moment to read the Wikipedia article about "precordial thump," a rarely successful procedure in which an impact to the chest is intended to restore a heart's normal electrical activity and rhythm. Such an impact, in fact, can induce a small electrical current or shock. Apparently, the procedure is problematic because the shock can also have the opposite effect and upset a normal heart rhythm. Back in the day, I took a number of first aid courses where precordial thumps were a topic of discussion.

You've probably seen the technique simulated on TV in numerous fictional medical dramas, where a heroic first responder or emergency physician, in a last-ditch effort to save a life, and without immediate access to a defibrillator, makes a fist and pounds a failing patient's chest in an effort to revive them. On TV, of course, it's always successful. In real life, it isn't.

Is it possible that the drone struck the boy with sufficient force to deliver the equivalent of a precordial thump -- to "shock" his heart? Give the kid's distraught mom and her layman's understanding and interpretation of the situation a break. Whatever the effects of the impact, the boy's hospitalization wasn't frivolous.

Thank you for your post. Hopefully, everyone will read it, do some of their own research, and avoid posting snide remarks about the boy's mother based on their own ignorance.

Mark

 

[Droning on and on...]

My initial suspicion is a technical cause: simple and well understood RF interference. Effectively, mix a bunch of Tx-Rx together in a narrow band - we are talking 2000 radio pairs in very close proximity -

That's not how it works... not even close.

Uses a small number of channels with frequency hopping and coded packets. Drones only pay attention to packets addressed to them.

The way it failed looks almost certainly like a controller failure sending erroneous commands to some of the drones. Safety protocol is, of course, to just hover in place if uncommanded.

 

[eEridani]

That's not how it works... not even close.

Uses a small number of channels with frequency hopping and coded packets. Drones only pay attention to packets addressed to them.

The way it failed looks almost certainly like a controller failure sending erroneous commands to some of the drones. Safety protocol is, of course, to just hover in place if uncommanded.

Frequency hopping aka spread spectrum radios- well - are not immune to interference. If another in-band source is loud enough, the spread spectrum comms will still suffer reliability.

ps: not quite ss = fh but trying to keep it simple

 

[Droning on and on...]

Frequency hopping aka spread spectrum radios- well - are not immune to interference. If another in-band source is loud enough, the spread spectrum comms will still suffer reliability.

ps: not quite ss = fh but trying to keep it simple

Of course. Nothing's immune to interference. What's important here is what happens when there's interference.

That's why there are very robust error correction techniques to counter noise and interference. This is a digital system.

And again, were there enough interference to compromise reception by the drones, they would fail to acquire a complete, error-corrected packet, it would not pass checksum and other techniques to validate it, and would simply be ignored. The drone would hover in place after completing the last command.

10% of them would not start shooting off in random directions at full speed.

By analogy, consider broadcast television. Old analog NTSC could experience all sorts of distortions, ghosting, snow, etc. with RF interference (including multipath reflections) because the CRT electron beam is literally controlled by analog signal levels that can be changed by additive RF interference.

Our current, modern ATSC standard is entirely digital. Computational techniques are used to detect and correct errors. If RF interference is sufficient to defeat this, you get no image at all, not something "wrong".

Same with the drones. Interference can't magically construct a proper packet with a rogue command to go wild. The drone either receives and extracts a valid command packet from the controller, or it doesn't.

 

[eEridani]

Of course. Nothing's immune to interference. What's important here is what happens when there's interference.

That's why there are very robust error correction techniques to counter noise and interference. This is a digital system.

And again, were there enough interference to compromise reception by the drones, they would fail to acquire a complete, error-corrected packet, it would not pass checksum and other techniques to validate it, and would simply be ignored. The drone would hover in place after completing the last command.

10% of them would not start shooting off in random directions at full speed.

By analogy, consider broadcast television. Old analog NTSC could experience all sorts of distortions, ghosting, snow, etc. with RF interference (including multipath reflections) because the CRT electron beam is literally controlled by analog signal levels that can be changed by additive RF interference.

Our current, modern ATSC standard is entirely digital. Computational techniques are used to detect and correct errors. If RF interference is sufficient to defeat this, you get no image at all, not something "wrong".

Same with the drones. Interference can't magically construct a proper packet with a rogue command to go wild. The drone either receives and extracts a valid command packet from the controller, or it doesn't.

However - most all drone shows lose drones during performance and the drones crash to the ground. The reasons drones are dropping isn't always electronic failures within the drone. And despite the claim of redundant systems taking over control - what we are seeing is that "process" isn't working, instead the drone falls, flies away, or is otherwise a loose ballistic object.

As an aside - early in my career I designed test systems for those old analog CRT's, the analog subject is non-sequitur. Later in life I worked with standards groups up to and including PCI-Express and SATA developing testing requirements. I understand the details of current communications standards fairly well; I also understand the fallacy they are immune to interference.

You're making an assumption the communications being used does include error correction, packet loss compensation, and fail-safes when comms are lost. It's pretty common for buffer underruns and overruns to NOT be properly accounted for by people coding these types of systems. Most coders never understand the hardware limitations of the devices they are trying to control with software. Then there's the issue of the protocol not accounting for packet acknowledgements and comm collisions. Error correction can't work if a request for resend is never heard; or an overrun floods bad data into reserved memory, etc.

Just too many variables: there is no true failsafe system design known to man.

 

[Bad Santa]

I'll ask my heart team next time I see them.

 

[Droning on and on...]

I understand the details of current communications standards fairly well; I also understand the fallacy they are immune to interference.

I haven't said they're immune to interference. I've explicitly said the opposite.

What Ive argued is the failure mode in this instance isn't explained by simple RF interference, as you are claiming.

You're making an assumption the communications being used does include error correction, packet loss compensation, and fail-safes when comms are lost.

No, I am not making any assumptions at all. Read in to that what you should.

Not interested in arguing these points with some who IS making assumptions... lots of them. Clearly you have no direct, hands-on knowlege of how these systems work, based on the arguments you're making.

You can have the last word.

 

[eEridani]

I haven't said they're immune to interference. I've explicitly said the opposite.

What Ive argued is the failure mode in this instance isn't explained by simple RF interference, as you are claiming.



No, I am not making any assumptions at all. Read in to that what you should.

Not interested in arguing these points with some who IS making assumptions... lots of them. Clearly you have no direct, hands-on knowlege of how these systems work, based on the arguments you're making.

You can have the last word.

So focused you are missing the entire point. RF -I should have said EMI ... sigh. Sorry. Not worth trying to explain.

There are drones falling out of the sky, that is the evidence whatever system is in use is inadequate, regardless of what supporters of these shows want to believe.

 

[Photo Booth]

Another Light Show incident with drones falling out of the sky, this time in Folly Beach, SC.

Folly Beach group issues statement on drone malfunction at New Year’s Eve event

The business association that presented Folly Beach’s New Year’s Eve drone show says it is working with investigators and the drone operator to determine what caused a mishap that left one person injured.

www.live5news.com

Makes me wonder if someone/s is intentionally messing with these drone shows.

Mark