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DJI confirmed an issue with the Inspire's firmware...

Posted by Greg Dronsky on January 21, 2015 at 4:42am

You might have seen this video before. Recently there's been some rumours about IMU issues of the new DJI drone Inspire.

The company just confirmed the issue, and they are fixing it in a hurry. It might never happened, if it was an open source software ;), just saying.

Don't Trust Your Expensive Autonomous Drone to Always Be Autonomous 

Everybody is super excited about affordable, portable autonomous drones this year. Well, affordable might be stretch. The badass new DJI Inspire costs $2,900, but it can fly around shooting video in 4K without any help. One problem: A bug in the firmware is making Inspire drift randomly—and crash.

Just ask Mark Taylor. The experienced drone pilot recently bought DJI's expensive new masterpiece and was excited to use the drone's auto-takeoff feature to "do a house fly-by for real estate." (This is potentially illegal, but we won't tell.) After experiencing some "shimming and drifting," Taylor decided to film a flight so that he could send the feedback to DJI. "This happened with no operator input just in auto take off mode," he said in the video's YouTube description. What happened? The flying robot almost took out his wife!

In an email to Gizmodo, DJI confirmed that there was an issue with the Inspire's firmware. (We can only assume that this dangerous random drifting is related.) The company said that its "product support team has noted the issue and is currently taking care of it." A fix is due to be released in the next 24 to 36 hours.

Nevertheless, Mark Taylor's scary video is a great reason not to trust your supposedly autonomous drone. We've already seen how problematic human drone pilots can be—and more problems are surely to come. We've also had our own problems with DJI's earlier autonomous flight features in the past. 

Your very expensive new toy may say it can fly itself, but do steer clear of those propellors. You never know when your drone will get a mind of its own. [YouTube via Daily Dot]

 

MORE:

http://gizmodo.com/dont-trust-your-expensive-autonomous-drone-to-always-be-1679451438

Tags: dji, firmware, glitch, inspire
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Comments

  • Developer
    John Arne Birkeland January 23, 2015 at 2:58pm

    I read about this on RCGroups, and the bug is a lean (bad IMU offset) at takeoff. And as told by another person who experienced the same bug, it just required a little opposite stick to prevent it from flying away. But I guess that is to much to ask from the average drone pilot these days... *sigh*

  • Darrell Burkey January 21, 2015 at 5:27pm

    @ DG - That's a good point. But if these devices are a danger to the public then do we have any choice? Imagine driving down the road and having one come through your windshield. It's only a matter of time.

  • DG January 21, 2015 at 5:13pm

    The question was asked in the DJI form on RCG: "Was this fixed?"

    Answer:

    Yes, if you have the current software and firmware this can't happen any more. The new firmware won't let you take off if the IMU is not calibrated. Once the IMU is calibrated it will fly level when there is no GPS signal.

    DJI said that during shipping the IMU can become uncalibrated. Many aircraft (including mine) did not fly level in ATTI mode. Basic calibration did not solve the problem, only advanced calibration did. Current android software has removed the basic calibration and now only allows the advanced calibration option.

    On the down side the latest firmware greatly increased the error detection in the compass and now some users and having the GPS/compass sensors stop working from time to time during flight.

    @Darrell- Do we really want to make this hobby unaffordable? If a requirement, that means some bureaucrat will decide who is qualified....oh yes, another government agency there "for the little guy". 

  • Darrell Burkey January 21, 2015 at 3:43pm

    Should the code that operates these devices have a requirement to be independently certified before being released to the public? Or is that not realistic? At least with Arducopter everyone can see what's being done. If there's an issue someone will find it sooner or later (usually sooner).

  • Henrique Ferreira Lima January 21, 2015 at 1:12pm

    I live in Brazil, wookong My GPS was twice DJI to solve problems; I have a Naza Lite has never recognized the GPS and even calling for a solution of the problem never answered. Lack of consideration customer. the various equipment . I have  various equipment the DJI ( naza v2, data link, etc ..) after that never bought anything from them.

  • earthpatrol January 21, 2015 at 11:50am

    @Cliff-E I would like to see the damage up close as well. I would expect that frame to be more durable and am curious as to how it failed on, what seemed to be a minor impact.

  • Cliff-E January 21, 2015 at 10:56am

    Choose your problem:

    a. auto gyro zeroing (likely required due to the articulating arms compared to a normal copter, a la APM, MWC, etc...).

    b. accelo glitch (yikes!)

    c. GPS glitch or GPS multipath (so far everyone seems to be using 'both loops' of their position controller on takeoff--really, really, just say NO).

    I really wish he posted the aftermath (of parts).

  • Rob_Lefebvre January 21, 2015 at 9:20am

    Robert, that is not at all normal for Arducopter.  If yours does that, you have a problem that needs to be fixed.

  • robert bouwens January 21, 2015 at 8:06am

    for me it looks  like a normal arducopter runaway.

    and i have been running a few times using apm ...

  • Greg Dronsky January 21, 2015 at 6:12am

    @Rob i agree.

    There is always some little bug waiting to be discovered. Hope they will fix it quickly.

This reply was deleted.