Why does a Mavic need to have IMU re-calibrated?

[Jackcutrone]

I recently had problems with my Mavic Pro giving me error messages. Someone suggested I needed to recalibrate the IMU. I did that. But I also had a magnetic interference problem which I have figured out and think I have fixed.

But my question is what would cause it to go out of IMU calibration n the first place? I didn't crash. I didn't drop it.

 

[slup]

Calibration of the IMU serve the purpose of ensuring that the sensors in measurement will produce accurate results.

Calibrating is the process of correcting errors which cause inaccurate sensor measurements. It check, adjust or determine by comparison with a standard model and make corrections accordingly.

Drones has a lot of sensors working on to maintain flight efficiency, such as gyro, accelerometer, barometer, magnetometer, etc. You got to make sure these sensors have accurate measurements to fly safely.

These sensors can, through vibration, aging, impact, drift in their response over time and thus there will be a change in their original values overtime...errors. Calibration of the sensors will remove these errors so that the drone can avoid crash, malfunction, etc.

 

[Meta4]

Someone suggested I needed to recalibrate the IMU.

People on forums suggest all kinds of things, not all are helpful.

But my question is what would cause it to go out of IMU calibration n the first place? I didn't crash. I didn't drop it.

Not much, if you aren't crashing or banging it around.
I haven't calibrated anything on my main working drone since new over 4 years and thousands of flights ago and it flies like new.

 

[treetops]

Calibrate get stuck on step 2 at 96% and won't move to step 3.

 

[MA2 317]

Calibrate get stuck on step 2 at 96% and won't move to step 3.

I know that a lot of Spark pilots "failed" at step two because the image on the screen had flipped the Spark and is waiting for you to do the same.


Here's a video from DJI on how to do it for the Mavic.

It's similar to the Spark calibration.

 

[DanMan32]

Originally the app showed the wrong positions for the M2.