Phantom 4 Pro V2 is now RID compliant

[Rob Levine]

Okay, after a lengthy chat session with DJI support, I still haven't yet successfully been able to confirm that the RID is being transmitted. But here are some tips:
-- The RID serial must be registered with the FAA before it can be transmitted by the drone. I'm not sure how that works but apparently you must register the RID for everything to work.
-- The RID is only transmitted while the motors on the drone are running.
-- Once registered and with motors running, the RID should be visible by scanning (on a phone or whatever) available wifi networks. This hasn't worked for me yet, but DJI did tell me that there may be a delay after registering the RID, so I'm going to leave it a while then try again. Supposedly you can find RID status in the Go 4 app also, but I wasn't able to figure out how to do that.

Would it have been too much of them to write some documentation? Has to be cheaper than dealing with everyone trying to contact them.

 

[nickap]

What does the registration of the RID number with the FAA have to do with using the drone. There is no electronic connection between the drone and the FAA. Plus GO 4 only let's you enter 10 digits of the 20 digit RID number. You can't enter the entire RID number anywhere I know of in the new GO 4 app. No "RID Status" found anywhere.

Excellent question, I have no idea. I'm just reporting what DJI support told me.

I did notice that sometimes when I was running the motors and checking wifi, I was seeing a network that came up as "Hidden SSID." I wondered if that was the RID transmission, but DJI support did not confirm that.
EDIT - I later noticed I'm still seeing "Hidden SSID" sometimes when the drone isn't running - so that looks like a false alarm.

 

[Rob Levine]

What does the registration of the RID number with the FAA have to do with using the drone. There is no electronic connection between the drone and the FAA. Plus GO 4 only let's you enter 10 digits of the 20 digit RID number. You can't enter the entire RID number anywhere I know of in the new GO 4 app. No "RID Status" found anywhere.

I'm wondering if DJI expects users to just leave the Identification field blank...the AC or RC could easily compute the correct ID - they wrote the method! So I took everything out of the Identification field and went into FAA Drone Zone and put in the expected ID according to DJI and the app took the IDs. Kinda snowy here so I haven't gone out to try and see if I can see the ID using Drone Scanner.

 

[nickap]

This is the screen that DJI said was in DJI Go 4 and that would show me if the RID was working. They provided this screenshot; I wasn't able to find this screen in the Android version of Go 4 - does anyone know where it is located? I was told that it was accessible from the splash screen of the app (the screen that displays the photo of a Phantom 4) but I couldn't find it. (It looks like the partially obscured text at top left says "Preflight Check", if that helps.)

 

[Rob Levine]

This is the screen that DJI said was in DJI Go 4 and that would show me if the RID was working. They provided this screenshot; I wasn't able to find this screen in the Android version of Go 4 - does anyone know where it is located? I was told that it was accessible from the splash screen of the app (the screen that displays the photo of a Phantom 4) but I couldn't find it. (It looks like the partially obscured text at top left says "Preflight Check", if that helps.)

View attachment 125607

Just looked pretty hard - didn't see anything like that.

 

[nickap]

One more thing that might be an important detail:
DJI specifically told me the serial number to use to generate the RID (using 1581F + 14-digit serial number + 0) is the FLIGHT CONTROLLER serial number, NOT the DRONE serial number. During the chat they told me "the flight controller serial number is not the same as the drone serail number" (their typo, not mine).) They had me go into the About screen of the DJI Go 4 app to get the flight controller serial number.

 

[nickap]

Just looked pretty hard - didn't see anything like that.

After going in detail through DJI's help documentation at User Guide for FAA Remote ID Compliance, I think that the screenshot she showed me was actually from DJI Fly, not DJI Go 4. It also looks like most of what she told me during the chat session was cut and pasted directly from this support doc, which doesn't fill me with confidence that she actually knew what she was talking about. Very frustrating.

 

[nickap]

It also does bother me that the Phantom 4 Pro v2 is not listed in the FAA compliant drones list (UAS Declaration of Compliance), which DJI themselves refer to several times during their documentation. Maybe the FAA just hasn't caught up yet with the fact that the new firmware has been released, but it's a bit concerning.

 

[rtcook]

So, I take it the Controller Serial number is 14 digits in length as well? I have not checked.

 

[nickap]

So, I take it the Controller Serial number is 14 digits in length as well? I have not checked.

Yes, that's correct.

 

[rtcook]

Ok. I'll have to change my FAA registration again. I used the drone serial number.

 

[msinger]

I also don't see the P4P, after updating firmware, either on IOS app nor Android.
Both my remote id stand alone modules (DRONEBEACON and DRONETAG) can be seen in any RID app. Guess I will fly with them and not trust DJI, as usual.

Did you start the motors? DJI drones don't start transmitting RID data until the motors have been started.

 

[rtcook]

I flew mine to a hover and nothing. Still cannot find anything in Go 4 relating to RID other than the ArepScope area which both entry fields are limited in character length and do not say RID.

 

[rtcook]

Just a thought. Are we sure that the serial number for the RID number registered with the FAA (Drone Zone) should be the controller serial number? Registering a drone on Drone Zone is for each individual drone making each RID unique. If the controller serial number is used, the RID number could be the same for more than one drone, no?

 

[msinger]

If the controller serial number is used, the RID number could be the same for more than one drone, no?

The "flight controller" serial number is a serial number on the flight controller component installed in the drone. So, no, it could not be the same for multiple drones.

 

[rtcook]

Ah! I did not know that. So the controller number changes for each drone. Its retrieved from the flight controller in the drone not from the actual controller. Makes sense.

 

[msinger]

So the controller number changes for each drone. Its retrieved from the flight controller in the drone not from the actual controller.

Kind of. Both the remote controller and flight controller (inside of the drone) have a unique serial number.

 

[rtcook]

So, its always the serial number of the flight controller on the drone. Which is unique and different from the drone serial number or the controller itself. The controller will get the flight controller number from the drone when linked.

 

[Fly With Me]

The Phantom 4 v2 RID saga continues. I have launched and landed several times and carefully watched all 4 of my drone scanning apps and nothing has appeared. I finally got some at DJI. First of all, she said that this is the first she had heard of the problem. However, she did give me a method of verifying whether the RID is working. Go on your phone or mobile app to the connections setting. Go to WLAN settings and scan. You should see the list of all WLAN signals in your vicinity and if you see one that reads "RID" followed by a 10 or more digit number, THAT IS YOU. It works. I have checked it 3 times now. and after the motors start that is when the signal starts. Turn off your motors and the signal stops. But still, nothing on the 4 apps that I have loaded. Incidentally, I went to an outdoor lighting event in the Phoenix area on Friday and saw a drone flying over us. I went to my 4 apps and only one of them was picking up the signal. But now I am confident that the RID software update works in my Phantom 4 Pro v2.

 

[rtcook]

Haven't tried this yet, but I will. If this is the case then the apps like Drone Scanner are just not capable of finding this signal. But, it still frustrates me that the Go 4 app does not indicate anything about RID working/transmitting. Also, what is the purpose of the AeroScope settings? Is that info supposed to be transmitted as well? I would assume that since you see the WIFI signal named in the scan as your RID number it is transmitting the location, take off point, etc. But, no way to verify until an app is created/fixed (Drone Scanner) to read this info and display it. Seems like not all is complete yet.