Involuntary rotation during hover

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1

I am using Litchi to hover at waypoints where I pause the mission and record downward looking video for a couple of minutes. This is for a scientific research project that requires a stable hover position and heading. However, in some of my videos after about 20-25 seconds of recording, the drone rotates by itself by about 5 degrees. What could be causing this and how can I prevent it?

Drone model: DJI Mavic 2 Pro
Mobile device: DJI smart controller
Android 7.1.2
Litchi 4.26.2-a
DJI firmware 01.00.0790

2

I’m not sure what would cause this but you can help narrow it down by doing the following troubleshooting steps:

  1. See if it does the same thing while not in a waypoint mission. Manually fly the drone to a location, point the camera down and record for 30 seconds. Repeat a few times to see if this is isolated to waypoint missions or if it does this in general.
  2. Try a similar mission with DJI Go4 to see if it does it with both apps or if it is limited to Litchi.
  3. Try manually flying to a location using DJI Go4, point the camera down and record video for 30 seconds. Repeat a few times.

Performing the above steps would to help to determine if:

  1. It is caused by Litchi missions
  2. It is caused by either DJI or Litchi missions
  3. It happens where the drone is in a mission or not
  4. It happens only with Litchi

Then you will know if it is a problem with the flying software or the drone.

2 Likes
3

I’m wondering if it might have something to do with a heading change to hold station in response to a small change in the relative wind?

4

I did wonder about this but as it seems to be at a consistent time after recording starts I think it’s more likely a bad control signal. I will do some tests as advised and see what I find

5

I think I’ve worked out the source of the issue.

I program my mission to go to a waypoint and stay for 30 seconds. During the 30 seconds, while the status is “In action” I pause the mission and start recording video for as long as I choose, then continue the mission to the next waypoint. However, although the mission is on pause, at the end of the 30 seconds the status changes to “After action” then “moving”, and at this point makes a small rotation and movement, recorded in Airdata logs.

My solution is to wait until after the 30 seconds to start recording, but this is not ideal behaviour.