Solar and Cosmic Weather Magnotometer inteference
« on: April 20, 2016, 11:37:03 pm »
Hi All. Some of you may be familiar with a you tube channel and community based org called suspicious0bservers. Well I've been watching their daily news videos on and off for quite a few years. but recently after purchasing and then having trouble configuring and calibrating my revolution board I got to thinking with the earth magnetosphere quite weak these days, the poles shifting and on some days the magnetosphere being weaker in some areas than others; could our Drones be being affected by this? Has this discussion come up in the Drone Forums before? I did a google search and couldn't find anything UAV related. Plenty about Navigation and the fact magnetometers are used to measure Solar and cosmic weather (along side other sensors), but not much related to hobby level Drones/UAV's.

So what do ya'll think?

If you are not familiar with "suspicious0bservers" They are NOT a Conspiracy based Channel (their name could fool you into thinking they are). They report Data collected from reputable scientists, and government and private scientific and space agency's. They coatlate this data and report it in a news style fashion for the lay man to digest. Its pretty cool. If there is to be a major Solar or Cosmic weather Event, such as a magnetic storm, you are likely to here about it there first, before it being reported on Mainstream media. you could have many hours advanced notice by watching their S.0. News.

Anyways, I'd love to hear from anyone who is both experienced with Drones and their sensors, as well as very away of Solar & Cosmic weather. I'm curios to know if as well as the currents within the wires of my drones, and other objects around my drone if Solar & Cosmic weather may be causing difficult calibration, or perhaps flight glitches, or drifting.

One thing I have definitely observed is the analog handheld compass. I am 41 years old this October (2016) and as a boy, I was in the Boy Scouts, and as well as that m Primary School (elementary School) used to have an activity called Orienteering. Where by groups of children (usually groups of 3,4 or 5) would have to navigate their way around the school grounds, using compass, in order to find hidden treasures. I became quite familiar with hand held compasses. Then later as an adult, I would chase thunderstorms, and in the years before having GPS Navigation, I would use a handheld compass, and paper maps. I am certain that over the years, across all the many analog compass's I have owned, they have gotten more & more difficult to use. They oscillate and drift more than ever, they seem to be increasingly easier to get interfered with. It doesnt seem to matter how good'er quality the compass is, it still doesnt seem to work as good as the ones I had as a child.

So if it is not my imagination, and compasses dont work as well as they used to, I wonder what the futer will hold for Electronic Magnetometers. Will there come a day when these are just not usable on hobby Autonomous Vehicles?

I'd love to hear your thoughts :)
« Last Edit: April 21, 2016, 12:29:04 am by Jayson Black »

bmw111

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Re: Solar and Cosmic Weather Magnotometer inteference
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2016, 09:46:28 pm »
A friend of mine checks space weather reports regularly before he flies FPV and has noticed a correlation between increased solar flare activity and reduced GPS performance.

Re: Solar and Cosmic Weather Magnotometer inteference
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2016, 01:50:51 am »
hah. Yeah i've not being using a FC with magnetometer and gps long enough to see a correlation, but I could seriously understand why there would be one. In particular the difference between when there is and is not coronal hole streams hitting earth. This video explains a few things about the weakening magnetosphere and the shifting poles. All verifiable by all the worlds top scientific agency's. hell you can prolly measure it yourself over time. Its all quite interesting and im sure it relates to the magnetometers on FC's Also solar wind can affect the performance of GPS Signal. quality etc :
« Last Edit: April 26, 2016, 02:12:58 am by hwh »