How to fly the drone in the area with magnetic problems?

ANAFI USA / ANAFI Thermal / ANAFI 4K
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@Jerome @ndessart I’ve seen that Parrot Anafi drone won’t take-off/fly near mobile tower or near similar areas where it reports ‘magnetic’ problems. How can I overwrite these alerts and fly the drone in these areas?
Lets say I am planning a mission using Olympe near a factory or mobile tower, in this case there should be some workaround to make the drone fly and complete the mission.

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@Jerome @ndessart just doing a friendly follow up on this, if you have anything to share on this problem would be really appreciated.

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Hi sss,
I confirm the Parrot Anafi can takeoff and fly in areas with magnetic interference.

There are a few subtleties:

  • the autopilot uses the GPS only when it has knowledge of the North direction, because the gps position & speed measures are in North/East frame, which need to be transformed in the drone body frame to be used
  • outside areas magnetic interferences, when the compass is ok, 0.5 seconds of measures are enough to acquire a good North direction
  • in areas of magnetic interference, the drone cannot use its compass to find the North direction. However it integrates its Gyro measures to maintain a good estimate of the last known North direction. So it continues to use the GPS. FreeFlight displays an alert “magnetic interference”
  • in areas of magnetic interference, after 3 minutes of pure Gyro integration without any valid compass measure, the autopilot losses faith in its North direction estimate. So it stops using the GPS. FreeFlight displays an alert “magnetic interference - autonomous flight unavailable”
  • when the autopilot does not use the GPS, it still uses the vertical camera for positioning. So it is able to hover and fly without any limitation. However modes like RTH, FlightPlan, Animations are not available.

If the takeoff zone is in a magnetic interference area, and the mission requires the GPS, a workaround is to:

  • takeoff in the magnetic interference area → it uses the vertical camera
  • fly outside the magnetic interference area, just for 0.5 second, to acquire a good compass measure → North direction knowledge → it starts using the GPS
  • fly back in the magnetic interference area → it uses the GPS for the next 3 minutes
  • just before 3 minutes, repeat step 2 to re-acquire a good North direction knowledge

hopefully this answers your question,
have a nice day

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Thanks @Aurelien for the detail reply. Let me work on your inputs.

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