How to know the quality of your Satallite / GPS connection?

JB Slimp · Jan 8, 2017

As a new drone flyer and solo owner there is so much about GPS , upgrades, new antennas , etc.

My question is how can your u know the quality of your GPS connection? My fear is to lose GPS 150 up and not be able to navigate it down manually and crash it. Is there anything reliable on readout that could warn me that signal is too weak?

Thx for your time!!!

JB

Chuck · Jan 8, 2017

That is why you need to practice in a very open area with no obstructions. You also need to assign "Fly Manual" to your "A" or "B" button and practice it a lot in an open area so you are comfortable flying in that mode in case you do lose GPS. A lot of info on this subject is in the manual and also in past posts, which can be found by using the search function on this forum. Your GPS accuracy is determined by the number of satellites acquired, and by the HDOP of the signal. The lower the HDOP, the better. An HDOP below 1 is considered ideal. I hope this helped, and please use the resources I mentioned. Good luck.

Maxheadspace · Jan 9, 2017

JB Slimp said:
As a new drone flyer and solo owner there is so much about GPS , upgrades, new antennas , etc.

My question is how can your u know the quality of your GPS connection? My fear is to lose GPS 150 up and not be able to navigate it down manually and crash it. Is there anything reliable on readout that could warn me that signal is too weak?

As mentioned above, be prepared to shift to manual mode. But I would not worry about losing GPS. Usually your GPS improves the farther up it goes. Most important is to ensure you have solid GPS before you take off. I never leave the ground without a solid 10 satellites showing. I wish the stock Solo incorporated the dual GLONASS/GPS receiver. You usually get 15 satellites in less than a minute with the dual version.

JB Slimp · Jan 9, 2017

Chuck said:
That is why you need to practice in a very open area with no obstructions. You also need to assign "Fly Manual" to your "A" or "B" button and practice it a lot in an open area so you are comfortable flying in that mode in case you do lose GPS. A lot of info on this subject is in the manual and also in past posts, which can be found by using the search function on this forum. Your GPS accuracy is determined by the number of satellites acquired, and by the HDOP of the signal. The lower the HDOP, the better. An HDOP below 1 is considered ideal. I hope this helped, and please use the resources I mentioned. Good luck.

YES thx for advice! I have been working on MANUAL flying. That brings this question. If I want to practice MANUAL with a SOLO not fitted with GIMBAL how do I access MANUAL mode being that I need the GIMBAL to offer access to settings to app to assign A & B buttons. When I have tried to access those options WITHOUT GIMBAL installed they are greyed out --THOUGHTS?

Coastwise · Jan 9, 2017

Chuck said:
That is why you need to practice in a very open area with no obstructions. You also need to assign "Fly Manual" to your "A" or "B" button and practice it a lot in an open area so you are comfortable flying in that mode in case you do lose GPS. A lot of info on this subject is in the manual and also in past posts, which can be found by using the search function on this forum. Your GPS accuracy is determined by the number of satellites acquired, and by the HDOP of the signal. The lower the HDOP, the better. An HDOP below 1 is considered ideal. I hope this helped, and please use the resources I mentioned. Good luck.

What manual are you referring to? Found where?

JB Slimp · Jan 9, 2017

Coastwise said:
What manual are you referring to? Found where?

Sorry for confusion --- I mean fly in MANUAL MODE, How can O access free flying without having the MANUAL MODE assigned to a button on controller? Is that not possible?

Pedals2Paddles · Jan 9, 2017

No, it is not. You need to assign flight modes to the A and B button in advance. And you need to practice using them. Fly Manual should always be assigned to the A or B button. You do not need the gimbal installed to have access to these functions.

SARDG · Jan 9, 2017

Coastwise said:
What manual are you referring to? Found where?

Found by Googling 3DR Solo Manual

Chuck · Jan 9, 2017

Coastwise said:
What manual are you referring to? Found where?

Or by using the search function on this page at the top right. It looks like a magnifying glass. It is used to search past posts. It works like any other search engine.

Chuck · Jan 9, 2017

JB Slimp said:
YES thx for advice! I have been working on MANUAL flying. That brings this question. If I want to practice MANUAL with a SOLO not fitted with GIMBAL how do I access MANUAL mode being that I need the GIMBAL to offer access to settings to app to assign A & B buttons. When I have tried to access those options WITHOUT GIMBAL installed they are greyed out --THOUGHTS?

You don't need the gimbal installed to assign modes to your "A" or "B" buttons. You do it from the settings menu on the app.

yt lee · Jan 14, 2017

The quality of GPS signal is determined by the Hdop value, lower is better. Normally Solo can't fly gps if hdop is higher than 1.2.

Hdop normally is lower if all signals are not reflected or bounced. In the city, the tall buildings will bounce the signals making it unreliable. Unfortunately, the stock solo app doesn't report the Hdop value (tower app does).

Chuck · Jan 14, 2017

yt lee said:
The quality of GPS signal is determined by the Hdop value, lower is better. Normally Solo can't fly gps if hdop is higher than 1.2.

Hdop normally is lower if all signals are not reflected or bounced. In the city, the tall buildings will bounce the signals making it unreliable. Unfortunately, the stock solo app doesn't report the Hdop value (tower app does).

The Solo app does give you the HDOP. When you are connected to Solo and the Solo app, tap on the Solo battery level icon on your device, and it will bring up a secondary info line that has the HDOP on it.

Pedals2Paddles · Jan 14, 2017

There is more to it than just HDOP. There are some hard limits though. It will not arm for takeoff or use the GPS if the HDOP is less than 2.4, or with less than 6 satellites. Again, there is more to determining if the GPS lock is usable than these numbers. But those are some hard disqualifiers it uses for arming or rejecting.

TwoTired · Jan 15, 2017

If some are still confused as to what exactly HDOP is, or rather DOP itself, this is my (rough) explanation:

Horizontal Dilution of Precision is a measurement of the configuration quality of your connected satellites. There are small input errors that exist while determining your location based on well or poor these satellites' positions are in relation to each other. Ideally, you'd want your satellites evenly spaced above you, but sometimes they're grouped together, giving less overall accuracy. These input errors then have a multiplicative/magnifying effect. A DOP of 2 would mean that the final errors (based on the input errors) are twice as big.

And yes, of course there are other factors that exist in determining the measurement.

Hope I could be of some help...

Maxheadspace · Jan 15, 2017

It's good to get practice in Manual mode, just in case. The Solo is supposed to switch into Manual mode if GPS lock is lost, but sometimes if things don't look right you may want to switch over to Manual yourself. I've never had a Solo GPS act up, but with my Pixhawk builds a number of times I've had to switch to a non-GPS mode (usually AltHold or Stabilise) to bring the drone home.