ArduCopter 2.9 / 2.9.1 released
ACRO bug (fixed in 2.9.1b): while doing flips in ACRO mode, if you switch to Stabilize while inverted your throttle will go to minimum. To regain throttle control you need to switch back to ACRO then back to Stabilize again (i.e. switch to stabilize twice). You never lose control of roll/pitch/yaw.
Loiter/AltHold/Auto/RTL bug: if you switch into these modes with throttle at zero motors will go to minimum until you raise the throttle.
Auto mode altitude bug (fixed in 2.9.1b): setting a waypoint altitude greater than 320m over home altitude may wrap around and instead be interpreted as a low altitude.
ArduCopter 2.9 is now in the mission planner and the downloads area!
The major improvement is we use inertial navigation to improve altitude hold. This increased reliance on the accelerometers means you must do some additional set-up before flying:
1. Perform the new accelerometer calibration in the mission planner (video). The auto-trim metho has also changed (video).
2. Add vibration dampening foam between your frame and the APM. Some suggested materials: DuBro, gel, hk foam.
3. If upgrading from 2.8.1, modify the throttle and altitude PID values:
- Increase your Throttle Rate P, reduce I to zero, increase D
- Increase Altitude Hold P, reduce I to zero
- Tune Throttle Accel P and I terms but try to keep P about 1/2 the size of I
Here is the list of major changes (a more detailed list can be found in the release notes):
- Alt hold using inertial navigation (Leonard, Randy, Jonathan)
- AUTO_VELZ_MIN, AUTO_VELZ_MAX parameters control the max climb/descent rate for the autopilot (cm/s)
- PILOT_VELZ_MAX controls max climb/descent rate for the pilot (in cm/s)
- Landing improvements (Leonard/Randy). Copter will descend to 10m or until an object is sensed with the sonar. Then slows to 50cm/s descent (speed can be adjusted with LAND_SPEED parameter). (video).
- Surface tracking with sonar (Randy/Leonard). Copter will attempt to maintain current distance from objects in front of sonar regardless of altitude. Only used in alt-hold and loiter, not used for missions. Sonar can be enabled/disabled with CH7 switch. (video)
- Failsafe improvements (Randy/Craig/John Arne Birkeland) including bug fixes, additional check for PPM encoder failure and implementation of battery failsafe. Set-up instructions are here.
- Mediatek gps driver accuracy improvements and use of SBAS [Craig]. Instructions on upgrading your mediatek to firmware 1.9 are here.
- Traditional Heli improvements (Rob) including (a) bringing heli code back into the fold, (b) enabled rate controller (previously only used angle controllers). (c) fix to rotor speed controllers - now operates by switching off channel 8. (d) allow wider collective pitch range in acro and alt hold modes vs stabilize mode (e) bug fix to allow collective pitch to use the entire range of servos
- Acro trainer (Leonard). Copter will return to be generally upright if you release the sticks in acro mode.
- ACRO_TRAINER : set to 1 to enable the auto-bring-upright feature
- ACRO_BAL_ROLL, ACRO_BAL_PITCH : controls rate at which roll returns to level
- Camera control improvements (Randy/Sandro Benigno): (a) AP_Relay enabled for APM2 (b) Trigger camera with CH7 or DO_DIGICAM_CONTROL command (c) Allow pilot override of yaw during missions and fixed CONDITIONAL_YAW command.
- PPM sum support for transmitters with as few as 5 channels (Randy/Tridge/John Arne Birkeland).
- Performance and memory useage improvements (Tridge).
As per usual PIDs are optimised for the 3DR/jDrones quad with 850 motors and 10" props. If you're using more powerful motors/props and are seeing bad flight behaviour in stabilize, start by turning down Rate Roll P in 25% steps.
Special thanks to our testing team lead Marco and the dedicated bunch on the 2.8.1 release thread who put their copters at risk while testing the pre-release version. Some of their videos are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Please feel free to report issues you find in the discussion below and/or add them to the issues list.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by baptiste.vial on -
Thanks for you answers.
I've compiled with
#define INERTIAL_NAV_Z DISABLED
Should i also uncheck "Throttle accel" on mission planner ? Is that this option that enable INAV ?
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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Marco Robustini on -
If you flag the inertial nav in the planner = skip the define in the config! :-)
The define is used to declare the type of inertial navigation we want to use, but the planner when you make changes takes priority because store in the internal eeprom the setting, reloaded when you turn on your APM.
Some parameters can be declared only in the config and not in the planner.
For example we have this situation:
#define RTL_ALT 1500 (declared by developer in "config.h" at line 648, is the RTL altitude, 15 meters)#define RTL_ALT 2000 (declared by you in "APM_Config.h")
RTL_ALT, 3000 (declared by you in the advanced parameters list = in the eeprom)
The RTL_ALT in this case is "30 meters", and not 20 or 15... :P
Now your situation is: inertial nav z enable with very bad parameters ("throttle" and "altitude hold" section) for the inertial enabled, bad way to alt-hold and loiter.
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Permalink Reply by baptiste.vial on
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Thanks a lot for the explanation Marco.
But i'm not sure to understand: what parameter on the screenshot indicates you that INAV is enabled ? Is it "Throttle accel" ?
INERTIAL_NAV_Z seems to be a compilation definition, i can't find it on the parameter dump from my board (find it attached)
Regards
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Permalink Reply by Greg on
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Unrelated perhaps to your issue, but I noticed your Stab roll and pitch I values are not zero. At the top of the post there was some needed changes in params moving to 2.9.1 Probably worth checking the note. I am just learning the whole tuning of PIDs thing so I could be off the mark here :-)
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Permalink Reply by Crashpilot1000 on -
Hi!
Just an idea. Why not release a non INS - fancy version with just working code without surprises?
Here is what i gather from posts:
Sonar like in 2.6 ?
pure baroalthold like in 2.7.3 without GPS Fix Bug. (baroalthold was worse in 2.8.1)
gimbal (2.8.1? and up ?)
Stab (2.8.1 and up)
GPS (like 2.8.1 incl MTK19 support) with adjustable minimal Satcount for each function (PH/RTH/Homepos etc)
Corrected Thr/Fails / anti fly away 2.9.1 (?)
Cheers
Kraut Rob
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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Marco Robustini on -
Because in theory if you deselect the inertial nav and adjust some parameters the code work same as 2.8.1 but with all the new improvements.
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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Marco Robustini on -
Inertial is the future, NAZA, WKM and Mikrokopter use the inertial for the correction... always!
Is when I walked in ArduCopter that i speak and insist on "inav correction" implementation, now that Randy has done miracles we just have to improve it... :-)
But INAV require nice setup, good balanced props and motors, nice frame, in two words "less vibrations".
In my drones I had to install APC SlowFly, with propellers that I had before there was no way to successfully operate the inertial.
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Permalink Reply by Crashpilot1000 on
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Yeah, i completely understand that! But i also understand my point :). Anyway since the weather is so bad here i will wait and see :)
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Permalink Reply by Neil Ohnemus on
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Crash - it does take effort for the developers to try to support what is effectively two code families.
You double testing right off the bat to ensure there are no bugs that only occur in a single code familie, you then need to add time in for organizing the releases for all improvements and fixed to both families, etc.
If inertial is really so bad then just hang with your favorite previous version until there is a new version that works for you.
I for one don't want the developers doing anything other than spending time on progress, and maintaining two code families is just wasting cycles - Don't forget these guys do this for free!
Almost certainly no other company like DJI would make a custom firmware for you, it would simply be use the previous version.
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DeveloperPermalink Reply by R_Lefebvre on -
Neil, you make good points. And it is extra work. But I think there is room in the codebase to make a "non-Inav" navigation and alt hold.
Just need somebody to do it. ;)
Actually wouldn't be that hard, since the code was already there.
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Permalink Reply by Zoltan Horvath on -
Quote:
"Because in theory if you deselect the inertial nav and adjust some parameters the code work same as 2.8.1 but with all the new improvements."
It is exactly what we need now!
Every time I have highlighted my entirely respect for all the dev member who makes efforts to improve the performance of this diy project but I think we make too big steps and improvements between two official releases before to solve some old problems. This personal opinion is supported from the history and if you will look back, at least the last 3 FW release get in few days a new patch which have fixed only the critical problems but some of the bugs where ported to the next official release. Maybe really the bugs are now solved but we cannot test them because the new features don't let us to do this.
I am still using the AC2.7.3 on my copters in which I have confidence and probably I know now the workaround for each included bugs but is impossible to start again and again from the beginning. I had didn't test the 2.8/2.8.1 because a lot of people reported problems. The message still highlighted on the wall that on the take off a flip could be occurred. I am so sorry but I cannot take off without to compensate the side wind, for me is not a solution.
It is true that the future is the inertial navigation and I'm dreaming too about a rock solid Loiter in the middle of the hurricane but is sad that we loose the new improvements because our gear maybe cannot comply with the low vibration requirements. The reason could be independent from us and must be searched also on the original parts as in my case in the original new blue 3DR motors which are poor in quality as the old pink one. The machining tolerance between the shaft+bearing+stator is too big that the rotor can wobbling around, what can I do? I will need to replace them but until this I cannot take the advantage of the current and voltage measurement with the 3DR power module and the improved fail safe because there are not supported from the 2.7.3....
I spend 4-5-6 hours per day to read the entirely forum to look where somebody has inserted maybe a valuable information and found that some known bugs will be fixed only in the 2.9.2 release which will include other radical inav improvements, so we will start again. Maybe somebody could refresh the header of this topic with all the information which are very important to be know for the peoples who don't have so much time to read hundreds of pages.
Something like a flowchart:
1. Dou you want to try the new 2.9.1 release? yes or no
2.Yes, Install the FW, do the calibration (description) and activate the RAW data logging (description)
3. Go outside and hover in stable mode at least 5 minute but DON'T try other modes at this time!
Observation: you could hit the ground (throttle mid problem), you could fly away ( vibration), etc
4. Are you landed? Is your copter secure? Download your logger file and evaluate your acc sensor Z axis (description)
5. Is your value situated between ex: -5...-15? Yes - you are lucky and proceed ahead. No - change your mechanical setup, move your cables away or go back to the earlier version.....
Foam... no, gel, no foam, dampers on the motors, no without dampers, maybe 20Hz filter, no 42 Hz, APC slow props, no wooden props...what exactly we need to do?
I think we need soon to create a "technical support" to evaluate all the videos and logs and let the devs to do their job because this topic reaches soon 200 pages before to have a solution.
I repeat, please take this as a constructive opinion.
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Permalink Reply by airmamaf on -
I asked this http://diydrones.com/xn/detail/705844:Comment:1106052 few days ago, but it seems not to be worth, that's pity.
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