I have the same problem on an OrangePi One (H3) with Armbian_20.02.0-rc0_Orangepione_bionic_current_5.4.12. I changed the board, the SD-card and the patch cord, but not the power-supply. I also tried the last archived legacy Image for the OrangePi One. I always got the same problem. I fiddled around with ethtool and found that turning off the auto-negotiation for the ethernet-connection fixed it for me. I don't know whats going on in the background. As I understand it, depending on the other side of the connection the connection could end as 10 Mbps half duplex if the auto-negotiation is turned off. But in my case (Fritzbox) the connection is rock-solid and the speed is also good. So maybe this solution that i found in some forum helps you too:
Probably... But my background is chemistry, or to be a bit more precise I did scale up from small to big.. And things you think about there is: What happens when...?
your wifi stuff ends in a locked kernel, kernel panic what ever..
the RT capabilities aren't that good as you though and some stuff which keeps the drone in an automatic flight mode doesn't work properly
your FS is somehow corrupted and your SBC is for whatever reason not longer accessible during flight.
To penetrate WiFi you have to flight over other peoples home (the legal aspect of your project is another field which I don't answer cause I've no idea what is okay and where it gets problematic) but I'm sure you get a bunch of problems when your drone hits somebody and the legal authorities figured out that this happened cause your drone was in an auto-flight mode with a setup which wasn't appropriate.
Legal authorities are a bit picky about drones in those days, and you shouldn't gave them a reason that your drone project to make it harder for the 'good guys' developing fancy and nice stuff for drones.
I would use the SBC on your drone only for collecting telemetric data not needed for a proper flight and your WiFi stuff you want achieve and stick to a flight control which is known that it works well. For sure a more conservative approach, but when it comes to fly over other peoples home safety should be adressed first over the other goals of the project. You wan't be one of this guys:
https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7205741/i-almost-killed-someone-with-a-drone
In terms of performance (for the network penetrating stuff), I think a cheap H3/H5 board will perform similar or even better.. And if you buy one with a decent onboard wifi, you're able to connect external antennas so you might no need a second wifi attached to it. Maybe a BPi m2-zero? the built in wifi (AP6212) is for sure better than the Xradio stuff on OPi0 (the 'original' not OPi0plus etc. they change wifi chips quite often... ) or NanoPi Duo, but the board has no official Armbian support and needs some tweaks to get it boot... Whereas boards with a pmic developed for tablets (e.g. often on A64 boards populated) would make sense cause you'll power your board from battery (but I've no clue how good the software side for such boards is, and which board has a known working battery powered possibility)..
Nanopi neo or duo for the absolute lightest weight and possibly lowest power consumption. I don't have a lot of good data compiled on the Amlogic chips and power consumption, but the Le Potato, NanoPi K2 or Odroid C2 may fit the bill as well, and are 64 bit with a couple additional goodies for improved performance.
