K-index = 6 today.....I won't be flying

[RedHotPoker]

My actual initials are CCS, close but no crash...
I think it's a beautiful day to go flying. Never had an issue with K...

RedHotPoker

 

[Jeff48920]

Just got back inside from a 14 minute 16000 foot round trip flight. Maximum 4300 foot distance at 412 feet AGL. As most of you know I have been having video feed issues and was testing a new start up procedure. I had zero problems on the flight and video was rock solid and averaged 16 sats on GPS. Oh. BTW the Kp index was 6 and it was severely overcast.
Guess Kp index is pretty darn meaningless.

 

[Buckaye]

Just got back inside from a 14 minute 16000 foot round trip flight. Maximum 4300 foot distance at 412 feet AGL. As most of you know I have been having video feed issues and was testing a new start up procedure. I had zero problems on the flight and video was rock solid and averaged 16 sats on GPS. Oh. BTW the Kp index was 6 and it was severely overcast.
Guess Kp index is pretty darn meaningless.

well... technically.... one might postulate that the Kp actually fixed your video feed.... if that wasn't such a horrifically stupid thing to think....

 

[Gregg Smith]

As you can see even from the site that was posted above but @StevenQX They even say that most likely not an issue but just use it as a play safe item -

Q. What is the Kp index, and why does it matter?


The Kp index measures geomagnetic disruption caused by solar activity, on a scale from 0 (calm) to 9 (major storm). Anything at or below 3 or 4 is usually safe for flying. The higher the Kp index, the more likely you are to have difficulties getting an accurate GPS lock.

Solar activity interferes with GPS signals in two ways, both due to disruptions in the ionosphere:

• It decreases the signal-to-noise ratio and affects carrier frequency, causing the receiver to lose lock on some satellites. Instead of 9 satellites, you might lock only 6, or the number might fluctuate from second to second.
• It changes the propagation delay through the ionosphere, making GPS positioning inaccurate even if the receiver has all satellites locked.

Even during a major storm, the extent to which you see these problems will depend on many other factors. One major factor is your latitude: ionospheric disturbances are worse at high and equatorial latitudes, and less noticeable at mid latitudes. Another factor is the time of day: most disturbances occur in the evening between the hours of 8pm and midnight. The effects also vary; sometimes everything will be fine, while at other times you'll lose lock completely for a few seconds or even a minute, or appear to have a lock but the position will actually be wrong by hundreds of feet.

The storms can also interfere with radio control signals, or with electronics of your aircraft.

In general it's better to play it safe during solar storms, even though most of the time you won't notice any issues. Happy flying!

For a nice research paper demonstrating the effect of solar activity on GPS, read Impacts of ionospheric scintillation's on GPS receivers intended for equatorial aviation applications by Groves et. al.

 

[N017RW]

Thanks Greg.

As has been pointed out, there's no correlation to any given K-index value and confirmed issue(s) with a DJI Phantom.

This site is great for learning about many subjects, some you wouldn't imagine.
This is one that we need not worry about.

Try not to worry too much with the minutia and just go FLY!!!

 

[ianwood]

If you live in an extreme latitude and see K index of 9, don't fly. Otherwise, you're worrying about nothing. Just keep your ATTI mode on the ready as you should no matter what.

 

[Chuck Young]

My thoughts too exactly, too many things get blown put of proportion like solar flares and bird flu

He said "blown"

I am not only going to fly, but at night, and shoot the moon, and drink beer.

 

[Jbundy63]

Just got back inside from a 14 minute 16000 foot round trip flight. Maximum 4300 foot distance at 412 feet AGL. As most of you know I have been having video feed issues and was testing a new start up procedure. I had zero problems on the flight and video was rock solid and averaged 16 sats on GPS. Oh. BTW the Kp index was 6 and it was severely overcast.
Guess Kp index is pretty darn meaningless.

That's funny! I just got done with about the same flight myself [emoji4]

 

[John Locke]

I flew three times today, no problems except I did have the bird acting a bit strange on yaw during my first flight. I was hovering taking video of the resort I'm staying at and the bird wouldn't stay fixed when no input was given. Lasted about 30 seconds. Slight wind gusts may have caused this, but I've been in much higher winds and didn't have a yaw stabilization problem.

I had No other anomalies all day long.

 

[joebar.rc]

It about the gps accuracy, that will fall with increasing KP. On another project (auto quad) we monitor the horizontal and vertical gps accuracy. With a kp <4 the hacc is between 30-60cm, about kp4 it becomes between 100-200cm or worse.
in short, with higher kp, the position hold becomes less accurate and can become a problem
When flying at higher altitudes above ground level you probably will not notice due to your perception of the copter, but it will swing a bit more with higher kp


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[ianwood]

It about the gps accuracy, that will fall with increasing KP. On another project (auto quad) we monitor the horizontal and vertical gps accuracy. With a kp <4 the hacc is between 30-60cm, about kp4 it becomes between 100-200cm or worse.
in short, with higher kp, the position hold becomes less accurate and can become a problem
When flying at higher altitudes above ground level you probably will not notice due to your perception of the copter, but it will swing a bit more with higher kp


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Four? Are you at the North pole? The biggest impact magnetic storms have is on ionospheric drift and DGPS does a lot to fix that. I've flown in K index of 6 several times and noticed very little accuracy degradation.

 

[joebar.rc]

Not to start a debate, but this is rather known when you develop flight controller. GPS accuracy will be less with a higher kp. That a flight controller can handle that is because of sensor fusion with the accelerometers and gyro. They notice a drift and the fusion algorithms (scented kalman for example, or an L1 adaptive controller with fusion input ) will incorporate that in the absolute values from the GPS.
So, the better the algo, the better the 'resistance' will be. But.. The fact it that the accuracy is less and can cause a position drift.
And no, not at the north pole, just the Netherlands

So, is it a problem?, no but if you experience some other feeling than on a lower kp index day than it might be the cause.

A couple of days ago, I did not look at the kp index and was testing a new navigation algorithm and noticed a very high horizontal accurate number (180cm). It showed during the mission flight. At home I started the hover app and noticed kp 6, next day same mission, perfect.. Kp 2 and h-acc 27 cm.



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