P4 Crash/Flyaway Due to GoPro WiFi

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Hello all. I normally fly an Inspire 1 pro but had an unhappy incident with some power lines so there went that. Sooo I ordered an Inspire 2 pro, I always wanted to upgrade but not like that and not this soon.

I had another job to shoot today so I borrowed a P4 pro from a company I do marketing for to shoot the job today. We have a Inspire 1 as well and the P4 is used as a backup.

Anyway, I was flying today in an industrial fabrication yard and everything was going great and was really impressed by the 30 minute flight times. I have a GoPro Hero 3 setup in the yard to do time lapse and had the WiFi turned on so I could stop and start the recording as needed. I had moved the camera to another location in the yard and when I was taking off I flew towards/over where the GoPro was. I was about 40-50’ high and all of the sudden the P4 banked 90 degrees to the left and flew away, dropping altitude as it flew sideways and hit the ground.

My question is could the WiFi from the GoPro have caused this? I did notice earlier that my video feed was a little choppy when I had the GoPro setup near me before moving it to that last location.


The p4 sustained heavy damage. The camera and gimbal broke off, and the chassis is cracked. It still powers up. I will have to replace it so not looking forward to spending more money as I just spent $7700 today on the Inspire 2 with case, batteries etc. I was actually thinking about buying a P4 as a secondary backup. Do you think it would be worth it to send the P4 in for repairs? If it would run $500 or so I would have the P4 I wanted as a backup afteall.


Good thing I got the memory card out and all the footage and stills are fine so at least I can get paid for that shoot.
 
Don't have the repair in voice in front of me, but when my P4 sustained equivalent damage repairs were about $900.00. State Farm paid the bill and wrote a new contract to cover a replacement P4P .
 
when I was taking off I flew towards/over where the GoPro was. I was about 40-50’ high and all of the sudden the P4 banked 90 degrees to the left and flew away, dropping altitude as it flew sideways and hit the ground.
My question is could the WiFi from the GoPro have caused this? I did notice earlier that my video feed was a little choppy when I had the GoPro setup near me before moving it to that last location.
That sounds quite unlikely but looking at the recorded flight data might give some clues as to what the cause really was.
Go to DJI Flight Log Viewer - Phantom Help
Follow the instructions there to upload your flight record from your phone or tablet.
Come back and post a link to the report it gives you.
 
Hi Meta4

You say that Gopro wifi would be unlikely to affect the Phantom, uhm.. well last week I was up on the moor miles from any cell phone or other signal source, I was filming some action footage for a running club. I was using a Mavic Pro and had set a course lock path for the mission The MP was at an altitude of around 30 feet, and was flying the mission perfectly.
At a point about half way through the mission the Drone suddenly veered to the right, I cancelled the mission and regained control after she had travelled about 20 feet off course. This occurred just as a guy with a helmet mounted Gopro rode his mountain bike along the track and under the Mavic Pro, did he cause it....? I flew further missions in that same area for at least another hour, and nothing like that occurred again..

Oooo, was it aliens, Gremlins, or Gopro WiFi that caused the malfunction...? go figure. :oops:

Waylander
 
I set up the GoPro later in the day, before that the Drone operated flawlessly. I had initially set up the GoPro near me and noticed that I had some video transmission issues from time to time. Then I moved the GoPro to another location about 200 feet away to catch another angle . When I took off I flew towards the GoPro and by the time I got near it I was about 60 feet and right at that moment is when the flyaway occurred.

I’ll be looking at the flight logs today.
 
Hi Meta4

You say that Gopro wifi would be unlikely to affect the Phantom, uhm.. well last week I was up on the moor miles from any cell phone or other signal source, I was filming some action footage for a running club. I was using a Mavic Pro and had set a course lock path for the mission The MP was at an altitude of around 30 feet, and was flying the mission perfectly.
At a point about half way through the mission the Drone suddenly veered to the right, I cancelled the mission and regained control after she had travelled about 20 feet off course. This occurred just as a guy with a helmet mounted Gopro rode his mountain bike along the track and under the Mavic Pro, did he cause it....? I flew further missions in that same area for at least another hour, and nothing like that occurred again..

Oooo, was it aliens, Gremlins, or Gopro WiFi that caused the malfunction...? go figure. :oops:

Waylander
Think about what the wifi signal from a GoPro (or any wifi or other RF source) might dot the operation of your Mavic or other DJI UAV. Worst case scenario being the control signal could be blocked. The Mavic would initiate RTH as with a signal loss. Unless there is some way the GOpro could have inked to the Mavic it had nothing to do with the incident.
 
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Think about what the wifi signal from a GoPro (or any wifi or other RF source) might dot the operation of your Mavic or other DJI UAV. Worst case scenario being the control signal could be blocked. The Mavic would initiate RTH as with a signal loss. Unless there is some way the GOpro could have inked to the Mavic it had nothing to do with the incident.

Hi ... Yes I understand your point, operating frequency and bandwidth, etc etc, like TonyBrsd the initiator of this post said, we can only go on what appeared to happen, there was no other signal source anywhere around, except the guys Gopro, I know it does not make sense, but until I cancelled the programmed flight mode (Course Lock) the MP did not respond to stick input, and it did not trigger RTH. :confused:
 
Hi ... Yes I understand your point, operating frequency and bandwidth, etc etc, like TonyBrsd the initiator of this post said, we can only go on what appeared to happen, there was no other signal source anywhere around, except the guys Gopro, I know it does not make sense, but until I cancelled the programmed flight mode (Course Lock) the MP did not respond to stick input, and it did not trigger RTH. :confused:

Yes - but as you effectively conclude, that is clearly mistaking correlation for causation. Wifi sources might, potentially, block with the control signal and trigger RTH but they cannot, in any sense, control the aircraft.
 
Good news was I was able to salvage the footage.

I looked at the flight log and right after I took off there was a weak gps signal notification, right about where it passed over the GoPro. It also said something about the IMU as well, but that may have been after the crash.
 
Good news was I was able to salvage the footage.

I looked at the flight log and right after I took off there was a weak gps signal notification, right about where it passed over the GoPro. It also said something about the IMU as well, but that may have been after the crash.
You were flying in an industrial fabrication yard. You should probably consider the prospect that the environment may have had a bigger impact on the GPS performance than the GOPRO. Would be interesting to see what the compass was doing also.

Seems like the AV switched to ATTI on GPS loss and you let it drift off?
 
it was in full gps mode, never switched to atti mode. I could have possibly recovered had I switched to atti mode in time but it happened too quick and was only about 50’ up so no time to do much.

The fabrication yard did have a WiFi signal but only had the video feed transmission troubles after I turned on the GoPro. Think about it, the WiFi is transmitted from the cam to my phone in my pocket.

On a job earlier this year in Alabama there was another film crew on site with an inspire 2 and I had my inspire 1. He let me fly the inspire 2 and I noticed the same video transmission problem. I had my inspire 1 powered and thought maybe because I had my inspire on that was causing the video feed issue but I did have my GoPro WiFi on at that time. From now on I’m going to use the GoPro WiFi to frame my shot then turn the WiFi off. I like the remote control aspect of that because I’m a one man band operation so having the ability to control the cameras remotely instead of having to walk to each to begin recording is nice but not if it’s going to affect things.

I replaced the P4 yesterday and will be shooting a job with it today with no GoPro being used so wish me luck. I do really like the P4 and will get one as a backup/secondary drone later on.
 
I never turn my wifi off on my phone or tablet when flying. The fact the GoPro was connected by wifi to the phone in your pocket should have nothing to do with the incident. Any chance you can share a link to the log here? Something obviously happened- would be great to have a good idea what it was. I can’t see how the GoPro might be able to transmit a signal the phantom would accept and interpret as a control command.
 
I replaced the P4 yesterday and will be shooting a job with it today with no GoPro being used so wish me luck. I do really like the P4 and will get one as a backup/secondary drone later on.
I'll second the suggestion to look into the flight data to learn what caused the incident.
It's really difficult to see how GoPro interference could do anything more than make for a flaky signal.
If it was mine, I'd be concerned to find out what it really was rather than assuming something which seems very unlikely.
 
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