Hi All
As an avid multi-copter enthusiast I need to ask one simple question .......
Why is it that the DJI NAZA and WOOKONG systems work 99% tuned 'straight out of the box' for most combinations of motors, ESC's, frames and combinations - but the APM project needs sooooo much tuning to achieve a similar result?
Am I being very naive here, or just plain practical??
Dale
Replies
WOW !
when I originally asked my question to the DIYD forum I had no idea what the reaction would be? and thanks again to Marco R for suggesting to me I should post this question. I believe there has been nearly 3000 views of this thread since 13th June - which is impressive to say the least.
A huge thanks to everyone who has taken the time (in some cases considerable time) to contribute to answering my original question - special thanks to Monroe Lee King Jr who has taken the time and trouble to answer sooo many questions here that I'm sure we all 'scratched our heads' about at one time or another.
Keep this thread alive as it is becoming a really valuable source of 'key information' we are all benefiting from.
With all the differing opinions and experiences here, I feel obliged to give MY honest simple summary experience of the autopilots I own and have flown - WOOKONG-M, YS-X6, NAZA V1 GPS (now with V2 firmware installed) and APM 2.5 (pre V3). I think I can state that I have tried all of the Autopilots on combinations of small to large Quad and Hexa frames (from all DJI Flamewheels inc TBS frame through RCTimer F800's to Arducopter 3DR, even including Flitetest's RotoBones series etc. etc (I'll omit the ones like the HK KK2 LCD - although they do have a place in our hobby)
DJI WOOKONG-M
Simply the best Autopilot system on the market today - if you don't believe that your're installing it incorrectly, you work for the ZEROUAV Company or just plain kidding yourself! The CON is it's soooo expensive ESPECIALLY when you want to upgrade to a simple 5 Waypoint autonomous flight option - damned shame about that part - but I guess Ferrari would argue the same in the sports car market!
YS-X6
Fantastic potential - from all I have read about success stories with the YS-X6 I believe it really is an outstanding system - including some autonomous flight options included. The CON is I don't understand Chinglish that well - the instruction manual is terrible and the obligatory need (in the case of my YS-X6) to introduce a wireless router into the configuration is ...... well in my opinion, odd and quite inconvenient! (This system probably deserves a lot more complements than I have given it - I have decided to re-install it in a frame soon and re-assess it's potential :-)
NAZA (GPS)
I find it REALLY hard to find fault with this little (and it is little in size) unit - I have found it reliable, trustworthy, stable - whatever frame or configuration I have mounted it on. Mine is a year old now and has been swapped to at least 10 different frames and with a few minutes of Gain adjustments - every time it has performed faultlessly and whenever I flick the 'return to home switch' I feel I can relax and just watch my MR come home and auto-land in front of me (it's done that EVERY time 100% on every install) - there's an awful lot to be said for that level of confidence when your 'investment' is flying several hundred yards away at a few hundred feet from the (hard!) ground!
APM 2.5 (with GPS and Sonar)
I'm quite new to this system .... so please don't shoot me down for my early opinion .... fitted to an Auducopter Hexa with all the 'stock' accessories fitted so it gave me the best chance to assess it under a known and tested environment. I love the MISSION PLANNER - all credit to the guys that must have put 'hours and hours' of work into creating that interface. The board is reasonably small, well planned and easy to configure hardware wise (wiring etc). Since this thread was born, many of my fundamental questions and previous misunderstandings of the APM 2.5 have now been answered (refer to the thread). After reading all the comments and advice on the thread I have since renewed my interest in the APM 2.5 and flew it last weekend by reverting to 'default settings' with great success (although it still seems to want to rise and fall altitude wise 'at will' on Alt and Loiter modes - I'll work on that!). I think the real problem with APM 2.5 is it has TOO MANY variables, especially for the pilot who has never experienced this before. It almost calls for a 'SIMPLE SET-UP' option in MISSION PLANNER where only the basic gains and calibration options are accessible - so no temptation for the inexperienced to go prodding around in the abyss! One more observation - no option to 'take-off' in Alt or Loiter mode - so when flying in confined spaces I find myself taking off in stabilise and when switching to Alt or Loiter, I find myself hoping for no rapid changes of height or direction!
I've said enough now ..... AWESOME thread, thank you everyone who has contributed so far - I'll bet the nearly 3000 views of this thread has turned into nearly 3000 'bookmarked pages' too! Let's hope it's helped at least one more person enjoy the great and highly addictive Multi-Rotor experience!
Thanks ALL
Dale
Thanks for the tips leonardthall. I'll be putting the APM back on and working on those settings until they are perfect.
I own a Wookong H on a camera ship and it flies great with no complaints. I like the DJI products.
Impressed with the Wookong-H. Not impressed with the Naza and its inability to adapt to other frames besides their own.
Hi guys,
I just stumbled across this thread after spending two days of frustrated tuning with the NAZA V2. The naza has performed HORRIBLY for me. Any wind and its all over the place. Two days at the field tuning the attitude(basic gain) and it flies OK but no where near the APM!! So where are the rest of the settings because the basic gains are not settling my hexa down.
I spent some time getting the gains on the APM tuned and it flies better than the naza hands down. I will admit the GPS hold is smoother on the Naza but about 10mph winds or over will make it loose its hold. The APM would be fighting it and going crazy but I believe it would handle higher wind.
These comparisons were on a 680mm hexa frame. I don't know if the dji stock motors/esc/frame are any better . I'm sticking with the APM because I can tune it to MY frame and get better performance.
After a week of own a Naza V2 its going up for sale.
Not only tuning, you also needed to buy 3-4 APM boards, because dydrones (now 3DR?) manufacturer don't care much about quality (they may even send you defective items they know about).
But now, thanks to Mighty Market, things get better and better. You can buy APM and related equipment from different manufacturers, and they do care about its quality. They send quick and accept returns.
There's so much about crashes... Even if you can *fly right out of the box* on Naza, you'll never fly good and constant on either DJI or APM equipment, without getting deep into theory. And thus, reliability comes to the fore.
I Wonder if Naza and Wookong may autoadjust PIDS at every takeoff? As I experience they are stable when in air, but not at the first point of leaving ground.
I have experienced flips ("groundloop") on takeoff with TBS Discovery (Wookong M) and this is a low profile model without undercarriage. Also With Phantom. Seems like it needs manual compensation before getting Airborne in some situations.
Others with the same experiece?
With APM the model always takeoff stable. When not Level surface on ground, the model will lift first to Level and then continue steady. Very predictable behave every takeoff.
I have an Arducopter3DR hexa with stock 880kv motors and 30a fast SimonK esc' using reinforced 10x4.5 props, Ublox LEA-6H gps, LV-EZ0 sonic using 5000mah 4S battery (kit from www.unmannedtechshop.co.uk). Should this combination fly well on stock settings? It appears to want to climb rapidly when atti or loiter modes are selected after taking off in stabilize mode?
I've had a couple of occasions (fortunatly during teathered testing) when the throttle has remained at full power despite the Mission Planner showing the throttle bar responding correctly to the transmitter input - a little concerning!
Dale
I believe there are a couple of reasons.
1. The naza and wookong both have some basic vibration dampening built in.
2. Generally people using these systems are also spending good money on their frames (or using DJI frames). Many of the people that purchase the APM's are also spending less money on their frames. This creates many more problems simply because we attract more beginners and crappy frames.
As one of the devs working on the control of the arducopter I don't think the slower processor is any excuse for not getting close to equal performance naza and wookong. I think that in version 3 we are very close to being equal and maybe even a little better in places (I have already had a couple of people say they are selling their naza after flying V3.0). With the PX4 and VBrain we should start to see if the extra processing speeds make a significant difference to basic handling.
Everybody seems to compare loiter accuracy but this really comes down to the quality of the GPS and the GPS settings combined with the level of vibrations in the frame getting to the IMU. With a half decent copter I think you can tune the APM to be just as "good" as the DJI's. But personally I feel like the DJI's are set up to be much softer in their response to the GPS this hides the gps errors but also limits the AUTO capability. Having said that I think there are still a couple of settings in the gps that would reduce our gps variation.
Finally, why compare APM and DJI. The simple answer is to make the APM better :)
Well this is just an anecdotal story but recently while doing tests with my HAL Hexa one of the aluminum motor mounts broke. I was able to fly it back to me on 5 engines from about 50 feet up and 150 feet away with enough control to land it up right and not brake anything not even a prop. This was with a the Arducopter APM 2.5.
My friend who was standing right next to me at the the time, also a hexa pilot using NAZA M was flabbergasted I was able to fly it back,. He said on two occasions he had broken a prop in mid air with his Tarot 680 hexa and both times it crashed almost immediately.
Of course these are two different rigs with two different pilots and many variables.
APM 3.0 software is coming along nicely and will improve things greatly. But the commercial counterparts still has some tricks up their sleeves when it comes to trouble free tuning (or no tuning at all in many cases). I think much of it comes from having faster and more dedicated hardware for the job instead of basing it on the Arduino architecture. But APM will catch up on that in the long run with PX4/APM3 hardware.
Here are some examples from my favorite (commercial) autopilot, the ZeroUAV YS-X6. First video is a test flight on a stock DJI 550 hexacopter (8" props) with no tuning what so ever (using factory defaults). The next video is the same YS-X6 moved to a big CF 1000mm octocopter (15" props) using the exact same factory default settings. DJI WKM behaves pretty much the same on the F550, but needs a little bit of tuning to fly the big octos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2XykcNVo4k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKMvQokZp54
You are right about Naza and Wookong systems working great without need for tuning. They are impressive in position hold and altitude hold, and fly real nice.
But with latest versions of APM Copter firmware it is not necessary to do much tuning if you only want a good flyer. For my preferences I always lower stab P (3.8) and rate P (0,13) a little bit before first flight and it works without further tuning.
I did put my Phantom with Naza in position hold side by side with my TBS Discovery with Arducopter 3.0.0-rc5. I think they behave very similar. Arducopter parameters are default except lowered stab P and rate P. And Phantom has pretuned parameters from factory special for that model.
You can still see Phantom is more stable at position hold. But they are very similar, and APM may improve with tuning of PIDs. Both are great Flight Controllers. Which to choose depend on what you want to do with your multicopter!
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