And, being encouraged to write a paper or two on drone reliability. Now that Amazon has a delivery drone patent, and industrial applications continue to announced daily, there is a need for serious reliability in these devices.
The early adopters and explorers in any nascent industry generally discover the many design faults including reliability issues. That is common.
As the drone industry develops, improving product reliability becomes a business necessity. For industrial application it is essential.
So, what is the current state of reliability for the devices available for the hobbyist? And, how good do the industrial drones need to be before they are accepted by the public?
I’m just gathering information at this point. If you have direct experience with drones, especially with specific failure mechanisms (detailed failure analysis), let me know, leave a comment and let’s talk or trade information.
If you develop drones, what are the major issues or expectations for reliability from your customers?
Reliability Questions
In order to start I need some basic information, please add a comment or send me an email directly.
How reliable does a drone have to be?
During flight, some failures are more problematic than others. Flyaways, loss of control, uncontrolled landing – what else? Less of a problem may be the loss of camera, for example. What else fails that is not catastrophic?
What causes the above failures? Hardware, software, user error, external effects (bird attack?)?
How long is a typical flight? And, how many flights per year should a craft expect?
How about the control unit? Is only for one unit, or can they be paired with many units and used more often than aircraft?
What is supposed to happen when the drone travels beyond the communication range?
How long should a drone last? Do you expect to fly a specific drone for a year, 10 years? How about different types of users? Strictly weekend hobbyist to serious amateur, competitions, up to use in business endeavors, like photography, what changes for their expectations on reliability.
Summary
Reliability is the probability of successfully operating over a specific duration in a specified environment. A well designed and assembled product will meet the customer’s expectations of reliability in a cost effective manner.
This exploratory post is to start my research into drone reliability. Thanks for your insights and ideas.
I have cheerson cx 20, but it’s not charging. Do you have any idea what could be possibly wrong with my drone?
Hi John,
Not specifically as I am not familiar with that device/drone. Not charging may have many causes, as you may suspect. Ranging from not plugged in to the wall or no wall current, to faulty connectors, to faulty circuitry, to an over zealous or actually working safety element that prevents charging. It also could be the battery has exhausted its capacity over time and use. The range of causes includes design, assembly, shipping, storage, and use sets of stresses that each may cause one or more elements of the system to fail.
The trick is to think through each likely causes and experiment to identify the actual cause.
Sitting here I have no idea, yet it could be something simple like not plugged-in, or something complex like an intermittent short due to dendritic growth between pins of an circuit board component.
Good luck with your troubleshooting.
Cheers,
Fred
Thanks for your concern 🙂
So much of technical data to find the reliability of drones. Helps a lot. Thank you for sharing.
I agree with you drones must be a fly-in over a specific duration in a specified environment.
Hi Fred and thanks for the article.
“How reliable does a drone have to be?” – to a large extent extent, that depends on price, in the main, you do get what you pay for.
In the case of delivery drones, the only sensible path is for them to be built to aircraft standards, and even they fail occasionally.
Some input from military use would be helpful, but I doubt that they will give up their tech.
Hi Tony,
Thanks for the note and I do not agree that price is a major factor. The design when it fully considers the desired reliability performance may or may not change the cost of an item – thus price. When treating reliability as a measurable feature of a design it is possible to create a design that meets all performance requirements. The hard part is understanding how reliable an item has to be for the market, and how to measure the reliability performance in a meaningful manner.
Cheers,
Fred