Reasons Your Drone Can Fly Away
Flyaway drones are a risk for every drone pilot. They can happen at any time. At DroneLogix, we have experienced two such occurrences, and it is a sickening feeling to watch your UAS fly away on its own.
Common reasons for flyaways...
- Radio Interference (electromagnetic and microwave)
- Faulty Firmware Upgrade
- Software Glitches
- Loss of Connections (physical and logical)
- Piloting Error
- Bad GPS Data
- Flying in Excessive Wind Conditions
- Loss of Line of Sight (Physical Signal Interference)
Preventing drones from flying away can be a genuine challenge as they occur for various reasons, so the best option drone pilots have is to be prepared ahead of time.
We recommend the following procedures and system enhancements to mitigate or manage flyaway risk:
- Recalibrate the compass, IMU, and gimbal after every firmware update, following the manufacturer's guidance regarding the order of sensor recalibration.
- If a built-in "find my drone" feature is not available, install and use a separate GPS and Cellular Tracking Device such as Trackimo or Marco Polo.
- Setup proper safety settings for each flight. Define geofencing, determine minimum obstacle clearance altitude (also known as MOCA) for safe Return to Home (RTH) altitude settings, validate distance parameters and lost communications settings.
- Install and know how to deploy a recovery parachute system such as Parazero, Fruity Chutes, or Mars.