Hi everyone,
I’m experiencing an issue with inconsistent satellite acquisition on my drones, and I’m hoping someone here might have some insight or suggestions.
Setup Details:
-GNSS Receiver: Here 4 (latest software version: 1.14.5AC6523C, u-blox 1 HW:00190000 SW: EXT CORE 1.00 (49f616))
-MCU: Matek H743
-Firmware: Ardupilot 4.4.4
-Parameters: Identical across all drones
-Drones on the ground
Problem:
Sometimes, some of my drones won’t acquire more than 15 satellites (GPS_GNSS_MODE = 0), even though another drone sitting few meters right next to it (with identical hardware, firmware, and parameters) gets 30+ satellites within 5 minutes. This issue seems random and isn’t tied to any specific drone. For example:
A drone that struggles to acquire satellites one day may perform perfectly the next day, acquiring 30+ satellites. On the other hand, a drone that worked fine might struggle the next day.
Additional Observations:
-All drones have the same configuration and are tested under similar conditions.
-I’ve ruled out location-specific interference, as the issue persists across different environments.
These are the parameter for ArduCopter and Here4 of one drone with 30+ satellites and one drone with 15 satellites:
params.zip (12.2 KB)
Here are the log files from Arducopter and ublox u-center of 2 drones, “drone1” which experiences the issues and “drone2” which work fine.
ArduCopter
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vrgnQkQg1YhXMEz7AhmRBHwbTtdPOsxE?usp=sharing
ublox
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1i99Xxgj_HvuBHQ2CTQlCJolCjKpZDSQg?usp=sharing
During the second log of the drone_1 (drone1_log_2_coldstart) after few minutes of only GPS and GLONASS satellites which started automatically. I manually selected GALILEO and then BeiDou GNSS and press coldstart button in the U-Center and after few minutes it acquired 10 satellites of GALILEO and BeiDou. During this process I change multiple times between the GNSS configuration to test what might be the problem. In the end I turn on GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO and BeiDou and it acquired 25 satellites. So I suspect there might be some problem during the configuration process between Arducopter and Here4.
I’m hoping someone might have some suggestions or even better a solution.
Best regards,
Matino.