Replies to This Discussion

DeveloperPermalink Reply by Adam Rivera on June 14, 2012 at 5:51pm

Also, I believe Auto Approach is new in this release as well (courtesy of Marco and myself).

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Randy on June 14, 2012 at 6:23pm

Adam,

     Oops!  sorry about that.  Added above!

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Marco Robustini on June 14, 2012 at 11:30pm

Courtesy of you, Adam... thanks! :-)

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Permalink Reply by hemanthtguru on June 17, 2012 at 12:40am

I have ublox GPS; but how do I connect to a APM 2 which already has a GPS on it....

I am hoping to get the same accuracy of the demo videos done by randy

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Permalink Reply by Michael Pursifull on June 17, 2012 at 1:06am

hermanthtguru: see http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/jumper-s-for-apm2-onboard-gps

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Permalink Reply by hemanthtguru on June 22, 2012 at 2:14am

where can find description about Auto Approach; or can some explain it here

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Permalink Reply by Derek Ernewein on July 9, 2012 at 6:19am

No one seems to be answering, so I'll do my best...

From what I can find it is to do an automatic approach to a specific height before a manual landing.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Pursifull on July 9, 2012 at 1:34pm

Hope this helps ... The code sets the designated approach altitude. It tests to be certain that we're not below the target approach altitude, otherwise it just loiters. It heads for the designed approach altitude while holding the current waypoint location. There are a few other sanity checks. You can review the code here for yourself to interpret what happens:

static void do_approach()
{
      // Set a contrained value to EEPROM
      g.rtl_approach_alt.set(constrain((float)g.rtl_approach_alt, 1.0, 10.0));

      // Get the target_alt in cm
      uint16_t target_alt = (uint16_t)(g.rtl_approach_alt * 100);

      // Make sure we are not using this to land and that we are currently above the target approach alt
      if(g.rtl_approach_alt >= 1 && current_loc.alt > target_alt){
           wp_control = LOITER_MODE;

      // just to make sure
           land_complete = false;

      // landing boost lowers the main throttle to mimmick
      // the effect of a user's hand
           landing_boost = 0;

      // A counter that goes up if our climb rate stalls out.
           ground_detector = 0;

      // hold at our current location
           set_next_WP(&current_loc);

     // Set target alt based on user setting
          set_new_altitude(target_alt);
     } else {
        set_mode(LOITER);
     }
}

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Permalink Reply by Michael Pursifull on July 9, 2012 at 1:41pm

If you've got a good approach alt set, and a loiter timer set, then you'll be interested in this bit from ArduCopter.pde. 

if(loiter_timer != 0){
     // If we have a safe approach alt set and we have been loitering for 20 seconds(default), begin approach
    if(g.rtl_approach_alt >= 1 && (millis() - loiter_timer) > (RTL_APPROACH_DELAY * 1000)){
         // just to make sure we clear the timer
         loiter_timer = 0;
         set_mode(APPROACH);
     }
     // Kick us out of loiter and begin landing if the loiter_timer is set
     else if((millis() - loiter_timer) > (uint32_t)g.auto_land_timeout.get())

     {
         // just to make sure we clear the timer
         loiter_timer = 0;
         set_mode(LAND);

...

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Adam Rivera on July 9, 2012 at 2:00pm

Mike: Thanks for picking up the slack here. This code has changed a bit in trunk since 2.6, but the functionality is the same. The loiter_timer var gets set automatically after a successful RTL. loiter_timer is not user defined. All the user needs is an APPROACH_ALT defined and it will descend to that altitude after the RTL has completed.

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Adam Rivera on July 9, 2012 at 1:58pm

Derek: Sorry about that. I will be documenting it in the Wiki after our next minor release. The auto approach code has changed since this release, but the functionality remains the same. The idea is that if you have an approach altitude set between 1 and 10 meters, the copter will descend to that altitude after RTL instead of landing. This was added because some people do not trust auto landing on their bigger copters or for expensive AV equipment. I hope that helps!

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DistributorPermalink Reply by Dany Thivierge on June 14, 2012 at 6:28pm

yeah! soldering and testing boards for customers right now! this will be a lucky one!
pushing 2.6 on this one for tests! happy!!!

Will try to give it a flight test this weekend and report here as usual.

Dany

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