DJI in Antarctica

Stuart Shaw · Nov 30, 2013

Hi all

Apologies, newbie here with my first post

Just a question that you guys may have an answer or thoughts on, I've had a phantom for about three months, been using it in Brisbane without issue, good aerial photography and filming with an adapted Tarot 2-d gimble setup.

Now, the reason I bought it is that I'm currently in Antarctica for a year and obviously the opportunities for photography down here are amazing. I took the DJI out for it's first flight the other day and it started out OK for about twenty seconds and then started to lose control, it started side slipping, I tried to compensate but every time I did it tried harder to go in the direction it wanted. I bought it down pretty hard, re-calibrated as I thought that may be the issue and then tried again, this time, even worse it just went mad heading off across the sea ice....A big crash later and I have two smashed prop guards and a slashed hand from trying to turn it off whilst it was biting me with carbon props

Now I note in the manual it states that it won't work at the North or South pole (which I'm not technically at) but from what I can read it looks like the GPS receiver isn't getting quick enough response times back from the satellites as they're at the equator and requiring a minimum of 30ms round trip to work properly...

So, IF I disable the GPS side of things will the DJI still fly relatively OK or is it a bit of a nightmare to handle? Alternatively does anyone have any ideas on how to improve it's functionality down here?

cheers in advance

Stu

LeoS · Nov 30, 2013

I remember someone mentioned that snow covered ground may interfere with a certain frequency since he has gotten control/interference issues only in winter at the same location, but fine in other seasons sans the snow.

Not sure if that's true though.

Dave Pitman · Nov 30, 2013

You could try ATT mode which does not rely on GPS. It probably relies on the compass. How does a compass act down there?

Manual mode is an option. Not too good for AP though.

I'd be interested to hear how it goes.

Stuart Shaw · Nov 30, 2013

Cheers for the replies, interesting thoughts around the snow interference, I was flying it on frozen sea ice out the front of the station at the time, we do have some melt onland presently though so may be brave and give it a go there.

In terms of compass there's nothing too unusual other than the fact that magnetic to grid variation is 80 degrees down here, that said though the DJI isn't following maps so that shouldn't affect it's telemetry I would have thought.

Keen to hear any other thoughts people may be thinking?

Cheers

Stu

martcerv · Nov 30, 2013

Sounds like flying in ATTI should work for you just make sure nit to fly too far as going out of range failsafe rth is not a good thing of gps wont work. You may also want to set failsafe to autoland which at least is better for it to come down on its own then try rely on GPS to bring it back incase of loss of signal.

mroberts · Dec 1, 2013

I assume you've done the compass dance? If not, that could be the cause. While you're not AT the pole, you're pretty **** close. A magnetic declination of 80 degrees is pretty extreme!

While it's not using a map, it does rely on the compass at least in GPS mode, and certainly in IOC and Home Lock. Given you can fly a Naza without the GPS puck, you should be OK in ATTI, unless it grabs the compass to help it out.

Driffill · Dec 3, 2013

I don't know how accurate the GPS is over that area of land, but if you really want to avoid any compass/GPS issues, I'd just unplug the GPS from the naza and learn to fly as much as possible in atti mode.

You lose a few features (fail safe/Return to home, GPS assisted hover) but depending on what you want to use it for, it may still be suitable?

LeoS · Dec 3, 2013

I wonder how does the accelerometer and gps of smartphones perform in that area?
Maybe they can be used to get an indication of any interference/deviations/inaccuracies of the dj phantom's.