Unexpected turn left and back

[miklav]

Hi everybody - apologies if I am asking something known but neither search here in the forum nor google didn't bring me any results...

I am new to Anafi and I had my 2nd flight today in an open area. I noticed a few times during move forward Anafi suddenly turned left and then back. I didn't touch the left stick; and even if I did it would have turned much slower... Is it something known?
No errors in the app on the phone (and the phone was in airplane mode with WIFI, bluetooth, 4G and GSM off).

This is the video from the drone:

(see 0:03 and 0:14 for those sudden turns)

 

[Jagerbomb52]

To me it looks like you hit a cross wind. Some of us have had a lot worse than yours. Yours looks pretty mellow compared to mine.

 

[dmbrody]

If @Agustine is correct, you might want to check out the windyty app. It’s great for getting wind readings at different elevations. Actually their website is almost identical to the app (if you don’t want yet another app on your phone):

Professional weather forecast

50+ weather layers, weather radar and satellite

www.windy.com

On the right side click the ‘hamburger’ icon, then scroll down and set elevation to 100m. It’s good to check wind speeds at surface, 100m, and 600m. If you see huge discrepancies, particularly between surface and 100, then you should be heads up when flying. Even when it’s calm on the surface, it can be severe just 50 meters over head. When it’s really severe, try to plan your shots so the Anafi (or any drone for that matter) is moving with the wind.

If this keeps happening on every flight, then it’s not wind shear. Typical advice would be to do a drone calibration and a gimbal calibration. If that fails, next people will probably ask you to post the flight log. Simultaneously, you could send the video and your flight log to parrot support. You’ll probably get an answer here first though.

 

[Rocky the FS]

I had pretty much the same thing happen to me last week, except it was during a follow me. Drone turned 90 degrees and back in about 1 second. I doubt it it is wind shear as the rest of the flight was steady, as was mine, although that is still a possibility. It was blowing about 10-12 on my flight.

 

[miklav]

Thank you @Agustine and @dmbrody !

Yes it looks similar on the video, and no I didn't see it during the previous flight. Will try again tomorrow... Today there was no wind at ground level but of course at 30 meters height it could be different.

Before Anafi I was flying heavier drones not sensitive to light wind...

Tried windy.com - that looks very useful. However changing the elevation only changes the animation on the screen but none of the numbers... And I don't see how to change elevation in the application... Will keep exploring it

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Thank you @Agustine and @dmbrody !

Yes it looks similar on the video, and no I didn't see it during the previous flight. Will try again tomorrow... Today there was no wind at ground level but of course at 30 meters height it could be different.

Before Anafi I was flying heavier drones not sensitive to light wind...

Tried windy.com - that looks very useful. However changing the elevation only changes the animation on the screen but none of the numbers... And I don't see how to change elevation in the application... Will keep exploring it

Very useful app to have or on your computer

UAV Forecast

UAV Forecast combines weather forecasts, visible GPS satellites, and solar flare (Kp) activity, to produce a comprehensive report and forecast of flying conditions for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

www.uavforecast.com

 

[Igziabeher]

I ran across that same issue twice in one flight, first it turned 180, went nose down then recovered and was back to the original orientation, then when flying back it did a complete 360 with a dip to port before regaining its composure and flew normally. Scared the be-jeebers out of me. I would post the video, but it is a part of a much longer video and I am not up to speed with editing yet.

 

[dmbrody]

I had pretty much the same thing happen to me last week, except it was during a follow me. Drone turned 90 degrees and back in about 1 second. I doubt it it is wind shear as the rest of the flight was steady, as was mine, although that is still a possibility. It was blowing about 10-12 on my flight.

Pure speculation on my part, but that just sounds like your Anafi got a bit confused where it’s follow target was for a moment. It lost track of its target, had a little fit, switched over to its fallback (your controller’s GPS location), and reacquired it’s target.

 

[dmbrody]

I ran across that same issue twice in one flight, first it turned 180, went nose down then recovered and was back to the original orientation, then when flying back it did a complete 360 with a dip to port before regaining its composure and flew normally. Scared the be-jeebers out of me. I would post the video, but it is a part of a much longer video and I am not up to speed with editing yet.

I’m sorry to say but that sounds like a bad ESC (bad prop motor). That behavior is exactly what you see on any quad copter that’s about to loose an ESC.

I’ve experienced this a number of times over the years, especially in the early days when we used to DIY our own drones. Obviously there could be other causes, but if I had to bet, I’d wager you are going to loose an ESC or have some other issue with one of your motors very soon.

I apologize for delivering such an alarmist message, but I would definitely recommend you dig up the logs for that flight. I don’t have any experience interpreting Parrot Anafi logs, but there are guys on this forum that do. Also you can submit the log to Parrot to see what they say.

 

[rsilk]

Check in Freeflight to see if you have Geofence set.

 

[miklav]

@dmbrody I hope it's not a hardware issue but will fly in a close proximity for a while (I have 1 year warranty but need to make sure I don't loose the drone), and will check it with different wind conditions.

@rsilk yes I do have Geofence set at 300 meters, but the issue was observed about 50 meters from me.

At the moment I treat the version about crosswind most probable, and I will do more flights to collect more stats...

 

[Jagerbomb52]

@Kilrah who is a member here and another forum we both belong to said it is caused by gimbal roll axis.
He said looking at the trajectory the aircraft is doing fine, it's just the gimbal that doesn't have enough throw, the roll axis has a pretty short throw, about +/-45° which is easy to reach in flight.

 

[Rocky the FS]

I don't think that is the case in my glitch. I was looking at the Anafi at that moment, and as is shown here it really did turn 90 degrees to the right and back.

 

[RedDeviluk]

I've had very similar too. Very worrying.

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk

 

[miklav]

Very strange glitch. The wind is stronger today (not very strong, but yesterday was calm today it's around 10m/s getting up and down all the time). I was impressed how well Anafi handles the wind.

I took 13 minutes of video and I only saw that sudden turn once. This time I was doing a circle to the right, and the turn was again to the left and back. Not 90 decrees, much less but still very visible at 0:07. So now I doubt it really caused by wind. I was flying towards the wind, away from wind and side to the wind, and was making a few circles and I only saw a glitch once...

And I don't see how can it be a gimbal issue as it can't turn left/right at all anyway...

 

[Jagerbomb52]

You would be amazed at what the wind is doing up where your UAV is flying. Just because it feels calm down on the ground you really have no idea what wind conditions are at 100 or 200 feet up.

This was three or four years ago flying my Yuneec Q500 which is 10 time as large as the Anafi on what I thought was a nice day for flying. Found the wind so strong up where I was flying I had to bring it back in.

 

[dmbrody]

Very strange glitch. The wind is stronger today (not very strong, but yesterday was calm today it's around 10m/s getting up and down all the time). I was impressed how well Anafi handles the wind.

I took 13 minutes of video and I only saw that sudden turn once. This time I was doing a circle to the right, and the turn was again to the left and back. Not 90 decrees, much less but still very visible at 0:07. So now I doubt it really caused by wind. I was flying towards the wind, away from wind and side to the wind, and was making a few circles and I only saw a glitch once...

And I don't see how can it be a gimbal issue as it can't turn left/right at all anyway...

Magnetometer? IMU? Post the log for that flight. It’s on your SD card.

Like the other video, it’s such a perfect horizontal pan with no jostling that it makes one suspicious that this isn’t wind. I guess the Anafi’s stabilization might be masking the expected up/down/sideways jostling one typically see from a wind gust.

Try a drone calibration. Then go into Camera Calibration, but just do the gimbal calibration in there. Don’t bother with the calibration to fix the horizon unless you really have to.

 

[miklav]

Magnetometer? IMU? Post the log for that flight. It’s on your SD card.

That file seems to be the last log from today, but I can't say at what moment the turn happened as was switching recording on and off. If log shows record start/stop then the turn was at 01:37 from the start of the last recording.

What software can be used for reading the log?
[update: it was a .log file so I removed it and looked at .json instead as suggested by Show Anafi Log Project]

 

[Rocky the FS]

.....What software can be used for reading the log?
...

This: Show Anafi Log Project

The latest iteration is posted in Post #169, on page 9

 

[dmbrody]

That file seems to be the last log from today, but I can't say at what moment the turn happened as was switching recording on and off. If log shows record start/stop then the turn was at 01:37 from the start of the last recording.

What software can be used for reading the log?
[can't attach it directly to the post - probably too large]

Sorry if I misled you, but I don’t actually know how to read the log. At least not for any of the Parrot drones. I do for DJI, but that doesn’t help you. I am assuming (hoping) that someone here like @Agustine would take a look. If the logs are anything like DJI’s, it should be relatively easy to find any anomalies in the compass, or other components. Not sure how much data is available on wind speeds.

I’d also submit a ticket to Parrot, including the log and a link to the video.