Arducopter 2.7.2 is now in the mission planner and in the downloads area. Some positive reports on testing can be found in this discusssion by John Hanson.
Note: just as the release was going out an issue was found re support for the all Camera Gimbals on the APM1s (it doesn't work) and with 3 axis gimbals on the APM2 (2-axis works ok but not 3). If you're one of these people, please wait for 2.7.3 which will be out shortly.
UPDATE: 2.7.3 is now in the Mission Planner
Functional Improvements over 2.7.1:
- Fast waypoints (Jason) - if the turn angle between two waypoint the copter is less than 60 degrees it does not slow down
- Navigation improvements and logging including switching to filtered location for distance calculations (jason)
- Flip improvements - more aggressive and flexible flip code based on attitude instead of timing (Jason)
- Improved camera control - you can now control any axis (roll, tilt, pan) with any rc channel. it probably makes most sense that you will use 6 but others are possible too. Unfortunately these changes required we change the set-up procedure so the mission planner gimbal set-up screen needs to be modified again. Please refer to the AC_Camera wiki page for how to manually set-up the gimbal (Amilcar)
- Flybar acro mode for TradHeli (Robert)
- "Fast gains" - allows strong correction of attitude using accelerometers while the quad is stationary on the ground but relies more on gyros while flying (Tridge, Jason)
- Baro filtering improvements (Tridge)
Bug Fixes:
- DMP timing fix (Randy) - the MPU6000's dmp unit was inadvertantly turned on and caused timing delays in the main loop- xbee bricking issue (Craig / Tridge)
- Dataflash fixes (Jason)
- Engine ticking - was a combination of roll/pitch rate D term being too high and the dmp timing fix above (Randy, Emile)
- Faster heading correction on start-up - resolves issue with simple mode getting incorrect heading if you took off very soon after start-up (Tridge)
Code Cleanup:
- Increased maximum number parameters (Tridge)
- Formatting changes to code (Pat)
- Replaced "int" with "int16_t" everywhere (Randy)
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.
There is still some question on whether the default Roll/Pitch Rate P (0.175) is high enough (it was 0.185 in 2.7.1) and also some people feel the Throttle Rate should be higher (currently 0.300 but some say 0.330 or even much higher would be better).
Please feel free to report issues you find in the discussion below and/or add them to the issues list.
Thanks and enjoy!
Replies
Hi!
After tuning my quad (http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/arducopter-2-7-2-released?comment...) in the backyard by just changing rateP and stabP (rest on default). Althold worked well in the backyard. I did a test in the field. On althold my quad went 156m up in the air with a constant climbrate of 3m/s. LOL! I never dared to fly that high. At this hight i got slight jitter on my videoline so i switched back to stab mode and landed. I have the whole flight on my groundrecorder with minimosd overlay. The data in osd is correct, because after landing the groundhight is reported as 0m. Back home i adjusted throttle P and alt P from 0.3 down to 0.250. Perhaps my next field test will be better. I don't know what happened for sure but i suspect my mix for the flightmodes 3 position switch with another switch for RTH (set to 30m) inside my transmitter could have been the problem perhaps the rth switch was on and the other one on althold - so in the sum it produced a crazy signal so the apm20 didn't know that i wanted althold. In my opinion the problem is to 95% on my side, but i just wanted to report it because there is a slight chance of a software glitch as well. I will try to read out the log file as well.
So long
Kraut Rob
Just put a quick video together showing the loiter I got out of 2.7.3 with a bit of a breeze. Hoping to eventually be able to recreate the gail force loiter performed by Wookong....
I did a fair amount of flying with the 2.7.3 over the weekend. I seem to have a problem with APM1 not booting correctly, the DCM seems to run very slowly. You can see it in the HUD if you move the copter around, the response is very delayed. It results in a lazy tip-over when you try to take off. Be on the lookout for this. It seems to be fairly random. Just reboot, and test until it boots correctly. Strange.
I did some work on the loiter params, and ended up with: Loiter Rate P to 5.0, I to 0.2, and D to 0.5. It holds well in a good breeze now. Now sure about calm air, it might be too aggressive, needs more testing.
Excellent flight a pleasure to fly in my octaquad. apm 1.4
Turnigy Plush 10amp esc, XAircraft engines, propellers 10x4.5, 1,650 kilograms, lipo 5000, xbee900, v8 xaircaft frame,sonar lv ez4, gps mediatek, floating to less than 1/4 of throttle. I keep waiting for my motherboard 2.5, almost a month.
Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2012 22:03:36 -0400 From: gateway@linkpt.net
To: robertoborobia@xxx, my Brother
Subject: Receipt from 3D ROBOTICS INC
Company: 3D ROBOTICS INC
Reference Number: 28952-4ZT
thanks guys
flight parameters
v2.7.3final.param
First flight on 2.7.3. Throttle felt sluggish.
On 2.6's first flight, I literally yelled out loud "Oh SH**" as it Rocketed skyward when I gave it throttle. Dialed the end point back to 65% and it flew great. Gonna have to revisit that with the new firmware. LOL
Back to this flight, never really got it auto-trimmed. Tried probably 6 or 7 times, and it would hold for a minute, then drift off again. I realized afterwards, that I did not wait for GPS lock. That probably matters. Time for a do-over.
Looked smooth though, nothing unexpected as yet.
I upgraded to 2.7.3 last night and had a few good flights! I noticed altitude hold is a lot more accurate. It was a windy day today and I hovered over my house then landed in the backyard. I was extremely surprised that my sk450 based quad
with NTM 1200kv motors flew ok with user control in the wind without any tweeks. I'll work on my pids this weekend to eliminate the front back oscillation I get. It appears this happenes when I'm in a strong wind. I was able to compensate with my pid adjustments for 2.6. I'll take similar steps to fine tune for my quad an 2.7.x
Great job.
Mission planner says "ARMED" but if i up throttle, motors won't start. 2.7.3fw
Why?
How to resolve?
If you are using a Xbee you should set TELEM_DELAY to a value of 3 or larger. The default now is to not delay telemetry. A TELEM_DELAY value of 3 will delay telemetry for 3 seconds, which should stop Xbee bricking.
Cheers, Tridge
Yeah as far as I can see here at jDrones too, this is one of the best behaving release. It is getting really nice to fly. I really like it's yaw now and yaw speed.
As randy said it work really well with default setting with all jDrones and 3DR frames. It's been a long run but we are getting there.
I really suggest everyone to try it and give more feedback to us all.
Really happy with the basics in 2.7.3! Feel confident enough to start pushing some of the more advanced functionality now!
Great work!
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