ArduCopter wind performance

Sometimes I have to fly in quite windy conditions, but don´t really know where the limit is.

Has anyone made any experiments regarding max wind speeds? How does ArduCopter handle gusty conditions in Loiter or Auto? I flew with FPV racers up to about 60 km/h gusty winds without any issues (except the weird camera angles), but flying in rate mode is completely different.

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The real question is, does your hardware handle it?
The software, when correctly configured, can handle it. But it is not the software that rotates the propellers :slight_smile:

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I have a drone that’s tune is awesome and I live in a windy area. One day I was flying it and at low level in ground effect, It lost sync and crashed. This wasn’t an arudcopter issue this was a config on the ESC. The motors where low KV motors, in a low speed situation and it was too much for the ESC to handled.

Like @amilcarlucas says…the software can handle it if the copter is built and setup right.

Now that I made the change to the ESC config it handles the wind great. I confess I don’t like some of the rapid changes it makes when it gets hammered with a gust but it is doing what it needs to do. I have measured winds up to 53KPH and the bird still handles it.
In fact is fascinating to watch a drone in loiter tilt itself into the wind to stay in one spot. It’s brilliant.

Everyone probably has at some point. There is no simple answer to the question but put it in terms of how fast the craft can fly with good stability and then call that wind. One of the Dev’s used that analogy and it made sense to me.

Right now it’s 32kph gusting to 47 here. I won’t be flying an Auto Mission with my larger craft but I plan on flying some of the others in these conditions w/o too much trouble.

Last summer, I flew a mission in really windy conditions. I noticed that the drone was drifting away from the flying path. I realized that the very strong side winds cause the drift. I switched to loiter, the drone was still drifting away, but I’m was able to land it without a crash.

My verdict: arducopter has a great wind performance, if the system is proper tuned. :smiley:

Here’s an oldie but goldie, 8 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8nAF6s-dwY :wink:

Thank you all for the awesome insights. So basically the software is not a limiting factor. That´s what I wanted to hear. I was thinking the EKF might through a failfase or something similar if the position drifts off, but apperantly this is not an issue. Great to hear, now I can fly with more confidence.

The takeaway: much power and proper tuning are the key.

Wind estimation and some other settings are coming in Arducopter 4.1

I have flown in auto and loiter in 50 kph wind and all fine, but you need to keep in mind that your battery will run out faster.
Also I recommend to takeoff and land in an area with no wind and then go up and there it does not actually matter.
Also you can set the ANGLE_MAX to 4500.

To know your maximum recommended wind speed fly at the maximum speed in poshold or althold (not loiter) and then the maximum recommended wind velocity is 2/3 of that speed of your drone. Then the maximum speed of your drone when flying against wind will be max drone speed - wind speed and when flying with the wind drone speed + wind speed!