Version 2.6 of the ArduCopter code is now available in the AP Mission Planner and in the downloads area!
Updates to MavLink 1.0 means you will need to use "ArdupilotMegaPlanner10.exe" to connect. If you've updated your mission planner recently you should find this executable in the directory where the mission planner is installed.
The above video is done using a prototype 3dr ublox GPS which seems to have better accuracy than the standard mediatek.
Improvements over 2.5.5 include:
- MavLink 1.0 support (use with ArdupilotMegaPlanner10.exe) [Tridge, Craig]
- Stability improvements especially during level hover [Jason]
- throttle range improvement (higher min and max) [Jason]
- improved standard Loiter PIDs [Alan, Heino, Jason, Angel]
- dataflash erase speed up ('+' messages removed but it only takes 6 seconds now) [Tridge]
- Copter LEDs [Robert Lefebvre]
- RTL loiter stage target set to home to improve final landing position [Jason]
- flip & acro improvements [Jason]
- circle mode target improvement for ground station [Jason]
- Auto Approach [Adam Rivera / Marco]
Bug fixes include:
- UBLOX driver fixes (lock should now be more reliable) [Tridge]
- enable mavlink messages during dataflash erase which resolves issue in which new APMs fresh from the factory appeared unresponsive [Tridge]
- proper printing of lat/lon values in dataflash logs [Randy]
- removed duplicate GPS reads [Jason]
- resolve flooding of telemetry link with low-battery warnings [Tridge]
- RTL bug would land if rtl_approach_alt was more than 1 [Jason]
- WP Radius could not be set larger than 1.3m [Jason/Randy]
Tuning:
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.
This time we spent some time optimising the loiter PIDs. Tuning loiter can be tricky so please refer to the discussions which will appear below for more community feedback on what parameters work best.
All feedback welcome below. Enhancement requests and bug reports can be put into the arducopter issues list. When possible please include logs (tlog and/or dataflash) and tell us whether you're using APM1 or APM2 and what version of the software you're using (presumably 2.6 but tell us anyway!).
Happy flying!
Replies
Whoops, here's the RLOG file I promised.
2012-06-30 16-43-36.rlog
I'm not sure if this is the right thread for this or not, if I should post it elsewhere please let me know.
Last weekend I experienced an Altitude Hold Throttle Cut-Out crash and spent most of my evenings this week rebuilding my tricopter. Today I took it out to fly and found that it pulls very hard to the left and a bit harder backward. To fly it, I had to trim all the way to the right and still keep my sticks left and back of center to hover.
Here's what I've done since my crash last weekend:
* Replaced 3 arms
* Replace several broken & mangled frame parts
* Replaced 1 motor (right arm)
* Replaced 1 ESC (right arm)
* Replaced 3 props
* Replaced a broken 3DR radio cable
* Did an erase of the EEPROM on the APM2
* Reloaded the firmware
* Reloaded my PIDs I had working so nicely last weekend
* Recalibrated the ESCs
* Recalibrated the Transmitter settings.
* Did the "Level" thing
* Setup the voltage parameters properly
* Setup the 3DR radios properly
* Setup Flight Modes for my Tx switches
* Checked the Accelerometer & Gyro responses in the Status Tab - a very small amount of noise, but looked OK & responded normally.
* Reset mag declination.
There's probably more, but that's all that comes to mind immediately. Most of the software things I've done multiple times.
Attached is one of my RLOG files from flying this evening. You can see that I'm always pulling to the back and to the left trying to keep the craft hovering. A lot of that is Tx trim, but I had to add more. If you're good with logs maybe you can see something more interesting in there. You'll also probably see that the FC really wants to run that motor on the left, #2 faster than the others - why????
Last week, before the crash, the tri was flying beautifully. I boasted to some friends that the Stable Mode flying was as good as a Naza and I meant it. Tonight it was all over the place, almost like I was in Rate Mode. I had my hand full flying it. I assume this is because the FC wants to do it's Stable magic when it sees the sticks in the center position, which they almost never were. There's no way I'd try Loiter or Auto in the current state. Altitude hold seemed to be OK.
Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong, but for most defects in the frame and drive system, the FC should be able to compensate. I mean if the motors aren't pointing perfectly 90.0000° up the FC will take that into account. Ditto if one motor spins a small fraction slower than the others.
I'm kind of out of ideas of what to try next. I suppose I could replace the left motor and ESC too, but they seem to be providing too much power, not too little. I'll probably do that anyway. The best thing would be to substitute in a different APM2 and see if it responds differently. But I've only got one of them. I wish there were more diagnostics available for this thing.
At this point I will very happily listen to any ideas. Thanks guys!
I upgraded to 2.6 and new mission planner, but now I cant actually erase my APM logs and it wont make new ones.
Didn't erase them properly before upgrading and now it shows 71 log files but will only show them as one big file on a CLI dump, and they cannot be accessed individually or erased. If you type erase it says no Logs but when you dump it, it is still there and when you fly the quad no new log files are recorded.
APM2 Log memory appears full and I don't know how to clear it.
CLI Log Erase doesn't clear it even though it says it has.
I tried loading the old Mission Planner and the 2.5.5 Arducopter, but the mission planner only gives you the option of loading 2.6 firmware. Of course the old Mission Planner will also not connect to the APM because it is .9 MavLink.
Greatly appreciate any help.
Hello,
Anyone has a solution to operate on the piezo AN5 on APM1 , it works very well on the APM2 but not on APM1 ...
I'm playing around exploring the aerobatic potential of my quad - flip-rolls and flip-loops are now fairly easy to do (thanks Duran for the method).
What would be helpful now is a mode where only the gyro's are used (ie ACRO MODE) at full Tx stick deflection and gyro's and accelerometers (ie STABILIZE) used with no stick deflection or small stick deflections.
This way STABILIZE mode and the security that comes with it are used with small stick movements but powered flip-rolls and flip-loops can be performed with full stick movements.
I can probably mix this in with my Tx (Hitec Aurora 9) but it would be awesome if APM2 could do it itself! (if it's even possible?)
How could the code be modified to add this extra mode?
Randy
I would like to know if arducopter v2.6 support ac2 optical flow sensor?
are there any different use this sensor for position hold without gps ?
anybody try this sensor for arducopter v2.6 ?
Logs are not working right. Does anyone have logs working perfectly?
I have an APM1 loaded with 2.6. At first, I only received small log entries with no data for each test run. After some fiddling, I now get logs with data in them, but it’s not even close to right. Here are the issues I see:
1) for a 30 second static test run (arm, wait 30 seconds, disarm), I get 7 log entries. For a 90 second static test run, I get 3 logs. The first log appears to be correct in every run, but the other logs are combinations of empty logs and logs from previous runs. See the attachment for a screen shot of my logs directory to see what I’m talking about.
2) I made a test run with two segments (the last run in the attachment). The first segment was logged as the first entry in the directory but the second 90 second segment was lost – no data was found for it. To create the first 90 second segment, I armed and then ran up the throttle to 100 percent (no motors) for 3 seconds every 10 seconds. Then I disarmed, waited 10 seconds. Then I armed again and run up the throttle every 5 seconds for one second. Then disarmed and checked the log. I used the throttle up duration to mark entries in the log that I could trace. The first segment was seen but the second was lost. Oh and the battery was connected the whole time.
3) When I enter the “download logs” dialog of mission planner I get garbage characters interspersed with the correct characters. For example, when clearing the logs, I get:
”3* ? Erasing Logs ?*?3l ?”
where * is a weird small el character. This did not happen under 2.5.4
Is it just me or is anyone else having issues with 2.6 logs?
Logs Directory Screenshot.jpg
I can't seem to get Auto Approach to work on 2.6. It was working when I was using 2.5.5.
I set RTL_LAND to 0, APPROACH_ALT to 5m and my quad always enters LOITER mode when it's doing RTL.
I also notice that RTL ALTITUDE doe not work. I've set it to 20 and it always comes back at the altitude that it was at when I flicked the switch.
Are these functions working?
Thanks for the time and effort working on this project guys!
Best regards,
Ronnie
I'm trying to display the raw sensor input of the sonar, but I can find which of the fields it is. I'm using the latest s/w: ACM 2.6 and Planner 1.1.94. My sonar is the EZ0 model. Of course I enabled sonar in the proper config screen. Neither the "status" nor the "tuning" fields of the planner show anything that seems to be the sonar reading.
Any ideas?
Dror
Tried a few roll flips and loop flips yesterday, works pretty well - technique is to accelerate vertically for 2 secs or so (until maybe 25m high), then while climbing - hard right stick and zero throttle simultaneously and the quad will neatly do a 360 flip, throttle up when it's horizontal again (or at anytime if you're in trouble, the quad will sort itself out).
Backflip and frontflip work the same but interestingly my quad always rotates 180° after the flip, (the flip must be messing with the compass :))
I couldn't get it to do a neat left flip as it seems to rotate much slower but that may just be the timing of the two stick movements.
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