GPS Loss and Crash in Loiter

There is a quadcopter with a CUAV X7 flight controller
The GPS CUAV 2HP module is installed and configured
Everything was fine for over 30 flights, I did all the basic settings, autotune, PIDs, etc.
In the last flight in Loiter mode, the number of satellites dropped to 0, HDOP increased to 170
The copter became at 70 degrees pitch and gave maximum to the motors. The drone flew to a nearby tree and crashed.
The maximum angle in Loiter is set to 15 degrees, the maximum speed limit in Loiter is set to 3 m/s.
Why did the copter react like that?

Log

Thanks for the answer!

At a time point of 157.4 seconds, the logs show that actual pitch started to diverge from the desired pitch by up to 8 degrees, which is way worse than in the preceding part of the flight. This means the copter started to incline forward.

(Actually pitch diverged up to 2 degrees earlier in the flight, unlike roll, which could also be an indication that something is not quite well. This is surely not a universal threshold for all copters, but for this one it might be already too much)

At the same time, the current consumption sharply increased from 40 to 54 amps.

The RPM from motor 3 (forward right, if I’m getting your frame configuration right) started to increase at the same moment. Something like this would normally result from a sudden undesired pitch forward, but a little effect from this indicates the forward right motor/propeller group has likely failed in some way. The nature of the failure is not known to me, and I cannot even guess because I don’t know the details of your design, in particular how exactly propellers are attached, and how motors are mounted to the frame.

Around that time, at 160.1 seconds, you switched to Stabilize, and current consumption got to 44 amps, already greater than 40. At this point, the RPMs from the motors still look pretty unbalanced compared to where they have been. The failure was evolving.

Why exactly the number of satellites dropped around the time when you switched back to Loiter (170.3 seconds), is not clear either. It could be a brownout, but it was not associated with any current spike. It could also be electric signal disturbance, especially if the GPS wiring comes close to power wires. It might even be GPS mount instability… Anyway, pitch was not healthy due to the previous failures and started to oscillate with an increasing amplitude, so the crash was imminent.

TL;DR: Looks like hardware failure to me. Check your propellers, motors and/or ESCs.

1 Like