GPS loss plus faulty inertial code caused fatal Camcopter crash
From New Scientist (via SAUSNews), a report on the fatal UAV accident in South Korea last week:
In a statement supplied to New Scientist, Schiebel says its Camcopter S-100 drone, a 150-kilogram rotorcraft capable of 220 km/h flight, should have coped in any case because GPS can be lost for many reasons, such as an inability to access the positioning satellites due to obstruction by high buildings. The Camcopter has multiple inertial measurement units that “allow safe operation and recovery in the absence of GPS signals” the firm says.
“All information recovered to date indicates that after a loss of GPS signals to the aircraft’s receivers incorrect handling and omissions over a time period of a number of minutes, resulted in an unfortunate chain of events that ultimately led to the crash,” the statement says. Emergency procedures “to ensure a safe recovery in such a situation” do not appear to have been “correctly and adequately followed” it alleges.
The Schiebel aviation engineer who died – a 50-year-old Slovakian with much experience of the technology – was assisting two remote pilots working for one of Schiebel’s South Korean partners. He was not in control of the aircraft, the firm says. It’s thought the Camcopter was being tested for new duties in border operations.
The accident aircraft had been used by the South Korean authorities since 2008 to police major events – such as the 2010 G20 summit in Seoul, says a Schiebel spokesperson.
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Comment by Coptaire on May 19, 2012 at 12:38am -
Navigation aid, GPS being of one among others, is not concerned by aircraft piloting.
Aircraft piloting, or vector management, apparently assisted from the ground.
All kind of aircrafts were already flying well before GPS became available.
Talking about GPS failure to explain a crash is like hurting a tree because of a bad map.
This is just a sad reminder that GPS on our small UAS is not a guarantee against bad piloting and bad trajectory.
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Comment by Carl La France on May 19, 2012 at 3:03am -
When The GPS started to wander we were receiving 10 sats The guys from Avionics figured it was When old sats went down and new ones came up being close to the buildings and stationary there was refraction off the buildings . Myself I think they became complacent . They had a fully operational system since 2008 they just put the drone out side the van marked it as ground zero and took off the guy running it made it look easy . on the way back there could have been a bit of "PCS" (Princess Concordia Syndrome) one of the o the guys might of said "Hey let me try ?" He switched to manual and puts it into the wall.
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Comment by Alex Arevalo on May 19, 2012 at 7:52am -
Ouch!
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Comment by dusl on July 15, 2012 at 9:48pm -
Does anyone know how much speed the Schiebel S100 helicopter main rotor wing
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