Is there a way to have the APM increase the throttle when flying into the wind to maintain a minimum ground speed?
For example if the cruise throttle is 50% at 10m/s and the wind is 10m/s, when flying directly into the wind the APM doesn't seem to increase the throttle and instead just sits there basically hovering in one spot, when there is still another 50% throttle available to easily overcome the head wind.
If the airspeed sensor is disabled, the throttle would be increased strictly due to the decreased ground speed, but that also has other drawbacks such as poor track following due to not knowing the direction of the wind to properly compensate. It seems like it would be useful to have both min/max/cruise airspeeds and ground speeds so they can be configured independently of one another to overcome this issue?
Replies
Yes, that functionality is present. MIN_GNDSPD_CM is in centimeters per second and determines your minimum groundspeed, increasing your airspeed to compensate for wind. Will not exceed your max airspeed (which needs to be set correctly! Otherwise it will dive the plane into the ground trying to gain speed!)
ArduPlane currently does not compute the speed and direction of the wind at all and cannot follow tracks correctly, with or without airspeed sensor. As it has no crosstrack integrator, it is impossible for it to reach the track line in wind.