Remote ID (RID)
- Nathan Howe
Overview
Remote ID or RID has been mandated by the FAA for commercial operations, and its inclusion means there are a few additional things to be aware of when preparing for a flight.
There is a transmitter in the drone that communicates with the Ground Control Station (GCS), also known as the controller.
In order to fly, RID requires location data for the Pilot (handled by the GCS) and for the Drone.
With WisprGroundControl 1.6.0, improvements have been made to make the experience of getting past pre-arm messages smoother. Users should spend much less time before being able to launch, and in ideal scenarios will not see any RID pre-arms during bootup.
To avoid errors that can be caused by the GCS determining its location from a combination of sources, setting your location service to “Device Only” is the new protocol for the controllers.
To do this, drag from the top of your controller screen and hold down the icon shown below
You will see a “Mode” option. Select it, and choose “Device Only”.
Additionally, make sure that your controller is set to United States (for US based customers) in the Herelink Settings. This can be accessed by tapping the grid icon in the bottom right of your home screen, and opening the Herelink Settings app, which is a green Gear icon.
Ideal Bootup Process
To ensure you’re able to fly the drone a soon as possible, please follow the steps below.
Open WisprGroundControl and let it load, where you see your map or the ‘waiting for video” screen, with “Waiting for Vehicle Connection” at the top. Make sure the controller is in a place where it has clear visibility with the sky, and at least 20-30ft from large metal buildings.
Set aside the controller and place drone in desired takeoff location.
Power the drone.
Wait for the drone to begin connecting to WisprGroundControl and loading parameters.
If your visibility is sufficient, normally this should prevent you from seeing any form of RID pre-arms during startup.
In testing, this resulted with the first message being “Heater Temp Low” or “Fence requires position”. If you see this, your drone is finishing initialization. You should be able to fly when they clear.
Alternatively, you may see “waiting on controller location”. If you have clear visibility with the controller you should not see this more than 3 times (it repeats every 15 seconds if still pulling location) before the pre-arm clears.
You can verify that your location data has been pulled if you see this
icon on screen. Once it appears, you should see pre-arms clear shortly after, if any are present.
Be sure to restart WisprGroundControl between drone boots.
Pre-arms
OpenDroneID: waiting on controller location
This message appears when the system has connected to the controller, but the controller hasn't determined its location yet. Once the location is found, the message will disappear. Once location is found it should not be lost as long as WisprGroundControl remains open.
Controller Location Lost:
This indicates the GCS’s location was lost. In normal use the user should not encounter this message unless they change apps or restart WGC. In such case the controller should still pull its location soon if signal is strong enough and the message will clear.
Waiting on Initialization:
This message means that the system hasn't yet received any information from the controller. It should only appear for a few seconds while the connection is being set up.
On rare occasion the RemoteID module may not transmit signal promptly enough and cause this error to not clear normally, but is not cause for concern. To resolve it, please close WISPRGroundControl, reboot the drone, and then reopen WISPRGroundControl. The Pre-arm error should no longer be present.
Other Messages:
On boots where WGC is not open before the drone is powered, the user may see ‘Lost controller location’ in the alerts tab right at startup. You can safely disregard this message, as it seems to generate in the brief interval when WGC first connects to the drone. It should not impact your operations.