Arducopter 2.8.1 is now in the mission planner and in the downloads area! Remember to do your MP configuration again after loading this code, since it erases your EEPROM and sets it to the new defaults.
Note: Issues with APM1 user's level feature not working are now resolved. If you installed 2.8 we highly recommend you upgrade to 2.8.1 as 430 extra bytes of RAM have been freed up which reduces the chance of memory corruption (although we haven't seen any cases of this on the APM2 at least) .
Note #2: this release has not gone out for Traditional Helicopters until they can be tested fully. Flip and Toy mode have also not been fully tested.
Improvements over 2.7.3:
- Improved ACRO mode (Leonard Hall)
- Improved stability patch to reduce "climb-on-yaw" problem (Leonard, Rob Lefebvre, Randy)
- Rate controller targets moved to body frames (yaw control now works properly when copter is inverted) (Leonard/Randy)
- Less bouncy Stabilize yaw control (Leonard)
- OpticalFlow sensor support for APM2.5 (Randy)
- DMP works again by adding "#define DMP_ENABLED ENABLED" to APM_Config.h You can also log DMP vs DCM to the dataflash by adding "#define SECONDARY_DMP_ENABLED ENABLED" (Randy)
- Watch dog added to shutdown motors if main loop feezes for 2 seconds (Randy)
- Thrust curve added to linearize pwm->thrust. Removes deadzone found above 90% throttle in most ESC/motors (Randy)
- More timing improvements (main loop is now tied to MPU6000s interrupt) (Randy)
- GPS NMEA bug fix (Alexey Kozin)
- Logging improvements (log I terms, dump all settings at head of dataflash log) (Jason)
Bug Fixes / Parameter changes:
- fixed skipping of last waypoint (Jason)
- resolved twitching when no GPS attached (Tridge)
- fixed loss of altitude if alt hold is engaged before first GPS lock (Randy/Jason)
- moved Roll-Pitch I terms from Stabilize controllers to Rate controllers
- TILT_COMPENSATION param tuned for TradHeli (Rob)
Code Cleanup:
- HAL changes for platform portability (Pat Hickey)
- Removed INSTANT_PWM (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.
Please note that on this release we've moved the Roll and Pitch I terms from the Stabilize controller to the Rate controller. There's some evidence that says this can lead to flips on take-off if you move the roll or pitch sticks around as you take-off so we recommend you leave these sticks in the middle until you're in the air.
Please feel free to report issues you find in the discussion below and/or add them to the issues list.
Thanks and enjoy!
Replies
Got time to try out 2.9 latest RC today. After a number of stupid mishaps (none of them SW related) finally got things going. Initial setup was using my rate and stab settings from 2.8.1 (fairly tightly tuned using Dave's methods) and the default settings for the new stuff.
Ordinary flight seemed OK, but a little different - before, if I hit the stick the thing immediately responded. Now it appears to hesitate just a bit, and it seems to coast a lot farther after I let up than it used to - either forward and back or side to side.
Switched on Alt-Hold and it began to pogo up and down sometimes generally climbing and other times not.
Got into the settings and changes INS_MPU6K_FILTER to 20 from 0 and set Throttle Accel P to Chanel 6 (.5 - 1 range)
Immediate huge improvement. Seemed to do best with Throttle Accel P at the lower end. This quad is small and alittle bouncy and I suspect vibration is an issue.
Ended up with Throttle Accel P at .6 with i at 1.2 and the alt hold is lovely. I especially like being able to hit the throttle, see it shoot up, drop to midpoint and it just stops in place. Really nice.
I have left the Throttle Rate PIDs at default as I have no idea what effect to expect form them.
Loiter is about where it was before except better altitude hold. I am using the Mediatek from JDrones which I have not updated to the newer firmware, so didn't expect much better loiter. But it is pretty good as is.
Landing is sweet even with Sonar disabled (I almost never use Sonar - it just seems to cause trouble).
Question to the gurus: Now that alt hold is pretty good, where to play with tuning to get back to snappier overall control?
Today I tried the rc5 on my Y6 with the APM2. It is really great.
I could not fly a lot around, because I only had the time to go in front of my house and do some hover tests.
Tried Alt Hold and it works very well. Sometimes the copter lost altitude, when moving around, but then I discoverd, that I did not have the throttle stick right at the middle or inside the deadband.
So Alt Hold works great. When raising or sinking the coptert locks imideately when I bring back the throttle stick to center.
I disabled sonar at the hardware form of the Missionplanner, because I did not find the sonar option in the Channel 7 dropdown.
Do I have to hardcode sonar on/of for channel 7 in the config?
AC2.9 - release candidate #5 is now in the downloads area.
Improvements over 2.9-rc4:
1) add constraint to loiter commanded roll and pitch angles
2) relax altitude requirement for take-off command to complete
3) added sonar on/off to ch7 switch
4) bug fix to ensure we reach the target altitude before moving to the next waypoint
I hope (again) that this is the last release candidate before the big release but in any case, we'd certainly rather find issues now rather than once it's in the mission planner so all feedback is more than welcome!
Thanks very much to the testers of the numerous release candidates! I think this will probably be the best tested release to date.
Sorry to bother you again with improvement
Till version 2.7.3, there was a parameter CUT_MOTORS, to manage a motor stop or spinning, when motor were armed and signal throttle was 0.
This parameter was never correctly handled, so I guess it's a reason why this parameter disappeared afterwards.
I think it's very handy, to see motors spinning when copter is armed, for many reasons, one is not getting surprised if you put some throttle thinking you're copter is disarmed and in fact not.
Is there any chance to get it back officially ? Set by default to false, with a value you can change in MP ?
With something like this, line 120 of AP_MotorsMatrix.cpp, replace :
motor_out[i] = _rc_throttle->radio_min;
with something like
if ( g.copter_cut_motors ) {
motor_out[i] = _rc_throttle->radio_min;
} else {
motor_out[i] = _rc_throttle->radio_min + _min_throttle;
}
Another improvement, it will be nice to have a ratio parameter for current sensor, like the one for voltage sensor.
Because if you don't use AttoPilot (I'm using the one coming with TBS frame), measure is not good, and you have to change a value each time there's a new release.
David
Yesterday I once again tested on RC1 APM2.5
climbed the 100 meters and made a turn for the pan shots
at 300 meters it very gracefully and I made a rapid decline back to 100 and slowed the decline. while I have found a 90 degree change of axis simple mode.
I was confused and turned on RTL. in RTL QUAID worked correctly and returned to me. I again turned on the ALT HOLD and pressed forward. QUAID flew to the left. Then I turned in the same direction and successfully landed Quaid
i have telemetry log. post it here? is it interesting?
I've logged a long time ago some problems with RSSI and COPTER_LEDS (issue 477 and issue 476).
With version 2.9x, it's possible to handle RSSI, put only if you disable COPTERS_LEDS, so if you compile your own firmware, it's not a real problem to do that, but if you want to use an official release via MP, it'll be impossible to use RSSI.
There's also a parameter (RSSI_PIN) to specify what port you want to use for RSSI. Won't it be simpler to have a dedicated port for RSSI (A8 for exemple), and the other one (A7 to A4) dedicated for LED, so you could have both, with no custom build ?
Thanks,
This my tlog test auto mode 2 rounds .
2013-01-13 18-00-42.tlog
Hi Randy,
I just test 2.9 rc4 finish on the evening and sent my logs for looks it
2013-01-12 18-15 3.log
2013-01-12 18-14 2.log
2013-01-12 18-17 4.log
ArduCopter 2.9-rc4 (release candidate #4) is now in the download area. Apologies to those people who tested rc3 just yestereday.
This release candidates includes just two (important) fixes over rc3:
1) Smoother transition between manual and auto flight modes
2) bug fix for LAND not actually landing when initiated from failsafe (RTL worked but if you're very close to your home position when failsafe is activated it goes straight to LAND - it was this situation that was not working properly).
We are hopeful that this will be the version that will end up in the mission planner in a few days assuming no other issues pop up.
If anybody's having any issues with this version or -rc1, -rc2 or -rc3 I'm here to help!
When is the estimated time of release for the new firmware 2.9 in the mission planner?
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