Drones Have Been Grounded Due To GPS Problems

GoPro has announced that it will be updating the firmware for its Karma drones this week.

Multiple pilots reported that on January 1, 2020, their aircraft were unable to correctly receive GPS signals required to calibrate the internal compass on the drone, effectively grounding the aircraft.

"If you’ve been unable to fly your Karma over the last few days, fear not! We’ve identified the cause and a fix is in the works," GoPro said in a statement posted on its website. "Our engineering team is testing a resolution and we expect to release a Karma firmware update within the week that will address the issue.

"‘What the heck happened,’ you’re asking? Without making this TL;DR, here’s some technical information on the root of the issue: Consumer electronics products, like Karma, which we stopped producing in January of 2018, rely on the World Magnetic Model to provide accurate positioning services. Late last week, after the New Year, we began to receive reports of users not being able to calibrate the compass on Karma. After investigation, we found that the World Magnetic Model stored in Karma experienced an issue when we clicked over to 2020.

"Karma users, when we’ve released the new firmware, we’ll refresh this blog post with specifics on how to update your drone."

(Source: GoPro blog post)

FMI: www.gopro.com