Why you probably shouldn't fly your drone on April 6th (GPS rollover explained)

[hainerob]

I have a Garmin GPS 18x USB which I use in my 4WD, which has a firmware version from Dec 2008. It started reporting an incorrect date in November last year, (10 years give or take in the past), the only negative impact of which is recorded track points have the wrong date.

The date reported by the device has nothing to do with the actual rollover, as the week number "mapping" I'll call it, is already set in the device, and could go screwy at any time.

I think excepting some fault in the GPS satellites as a result of the rollover, there will be no impact on our Mavics on this occasion.

However, I do wonder --- come the time when this WILL happen, will our Mavics even take off? or will the date mismatch between GPS and GLONASS/actual be enough to cause an error which will prevent it from allowing a takeoff? Who knows. We'll just have to wait and see!

 

[BradinLae]

The Lowrance system I installed in a game-boat started playing up in about November and that system is about 5 years old. The owner reset the system and made a right royal mess. It would not display the time was the first fault. Yet From memory the time of arrival was OK. That was for an expensive navigation system with auto pilot on a 50 footer.
When questioned the response from the supplier was that everything will go back to normal in April.
After I reset the sensors to their correct settings, things went OK, but no time on the screen.
Lowrance HDS Gen 2 Date Issue - 2099

I'm not saying that all aircraft will fall out of the sky but being aware of a GPS chip-set glitch is better than not knowing.
On another note, a friend doing a Litchi autopilot route with his platinum didn't allow for a 100m transmission tower on the weekend. Nice little mess we recovered from the razor wire.
Luckily it wasn't my tower but a gov owned one. He called me to help with recovery.

 

[BanditsRoost]

Well for me I will be celebrating my 71st. Birthday, April 6th...

Have a Happy! I'll be celebrating my 39th wedding anniversary. Think i'll put it in ATTI mode and GPS be danged.....

 

[FormerMember07122019_2]

Having worked in the semiconductor business for almost 40 years I can comfortably assure you that the GPS chip used in any recent drone is less than 5 years old from the date of manufacture. There are many reasons for this but the one most interesting is due to Moore’s Law (you can google it). Integrated circuit (chip) technology advances very quickly such that new chips are 30 times smaller, less power, significantly more capable, and much less costly, than one designed 10 years prior. In addition, leading edge companies like DJI redo, update, or cost reduce their designs at least once a year. Bottom line, an extremely competitive industry that moves very fast.

Military electronics is a whole other ballgame. I have seen some military equipment use 10 year or older technology. This is for a number of reasons but mostly comes down to bureaucracy.

 

[Thomas B]

Having worked in the semiconductor business for almost 40 years I can comfortably assure you that the GPS chip used in any recent drone is less than 5 years old from the date of manufacture.

Meaning you believe we are OK?

 

[Kilrah]

Yeah. It would be extremely surprising that the GPS modules in DJI products (and most other drones), which are basically the latest gen of probably the best and biggest current manufacturer of GPS receivers would not handle that correctly.

 

[Thoraldus]

Got a definitive answer from DJI this morning...

"
We appreciate your patience on this query. After communicating with our engineers, they stated that you should not worry about anything as your GPS will not be affected.

I hope that this information helps you. Please feel free to contact us at any time for assistance.

Thank you for contacting DJI and have a great day ahead!
Best Regards,

Kamil
DJI Technical Support"

 

[Thomas B]

Got a definitive answer from DJI this morning...

"
We appreciate your patience on this query. After communicating with our engineers, they stated that you should not worry about anything as your GPS will not be affected.

I hope that this information helps you. Please feel free to contact us at any time for assistance.

Thank you for contacting DJI and have a great day ahead!
Best Regards,

Kamil
DJI Technical Support"

Thanks for posting. Perhaps there should be a posting of the letter and a link to all the threads discussing this issue. I know some will still observe caution, but this is very reassuring.

 

[FormerMember07122019_2]

Meaning you believe we are OK?

Yes.

 

[tleedom]

Got a definitive answer from DJI this morning...

"
We appreciate your patience on this query. After communicating with our engineers, they stated that you should not worry about anything as your GPS will not be affected.

I hope that this information helps you. Please feel free to contact us at any time for assistance.

Thank you for contacting DJI and have a great day ahead!
Best Regards,

Kamil
DJI Technical Support"

Took long enough, I almost ran out of popcorn watching this show.

 

[Chips]

I think I'll clean my drone on April 5/6/7.

 

[Cyberpower678]

Rollover happened, was on the middle of a trip using my 12 year old GPS system. Nothing happened to it. It still geolocated my car to this planet.

 

[Mike4884]

Well i flew all day today....nothing happened

 

[kadras]

I gathered up all my GPS receivers before the rollover date. To get an idea of when they were last updated, as each of the units booted up, I noted the dates that quickly flashed on-screen. I checked internally for software/firmware dates. The dates shown below are the most recent dates I found within each device. My two current units, a Garmin 64s handheld and nuvi 2595LM vehicle portable were both updated this year and used as the baseline for time, date and location. Location format was set to decimal degrees to get the most resolution.

Post rollover date results are:
The Kenwood/Garmin DNX7120 in-dash entertainment center (2009) I installed in my Toyota had time, date and location correct. I keep the maps current in this, but there have been no firmware updates.
Two older handheld units which I still use are a Garmin eTrex Vista (2008) and GPSmap 76s (2006). Both matched the current units for time, date and location.

Older units for which I have no idea when they were last used.
Garmin GPS III+ (2002) and Garmin GPS 45 (1995) had correct time and position. Both showed the date as 21 August 1999. That's the date of the previous rollover. The III+ has a cold start setting which allows the user to select a place on a map. It took about 20 to 30 minutes to lock onto the satellite signals and determine location. The 45 had no such feature and took at least an hour to find satellites and resolve position.

Trimble Scout (1993), one of the first civilian handheld GPS units. It never found more than one satellite, and lost lock on it, so never established location. Only one satellite is needed to get time and date. It got the time right, but like the other old units, the date was 21 Aug 1999.

 

[kadras]

So the GPS Week Rollover apparently caught Honeywell asleep at the wheel. Weather balloons in Australia and some Boeing jets around the world had the dates rollback to August 1999, just like my old GPS receivers. Reportedly the GPS units were all built by Honeywell GPS Week Rollover grounds Aussie weather balloons, Boeing planes - GPS World

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D3iRN-hU4AADWVZ.jpg:large