ACRO bug (fixed in 2.9.1b): while doing flips in ACRO mode, if you switch to Stabilize while inverted your throttle will go to minimum. To regain throttle control you need to switch back to ACRO then back to Stabilize again (i.e. switch to stabilize twice). You never lose control of roll/pitch/yaw.
Loiter/AltHold/Auto/RTL bug: if you switch into these modes with throttle at zero motors will go to minimum until you raise the throttle.
Auto mode altitude bug (fixed in 2.9.1b): setting a waypoint altitude greater than 320m over home altitude may wrap around and instead be interpreted as a low altitude.
ArduCopter 2.9 is now in the mission planner and the downloads area!
The major improvement is we use inertial navigation to improve altitude hold. This increased reliance on the accelerometers means you must do some additional set-up before flying:
1. Perform the new accelerometer calibration in the mission planner (video). The auto-trim metho has also changed (video).
2. Add vibration dampening foam between your frame and the APM. Some suggested materials: DuBro, gel, hk foam.
3. If upgrading from 2.8.1, modify the throttle and altitude PID values:
- Increase your Throttle Rate P, reduce I to zero, increase D
- Increase Altitude Hold P, reduce I to zero
- Tune Throttle Accel P and I terms but try to keep P about 1/2 the size of I
Here is the list of major changes (a more detailed list can be found in the release notes):
- Alt hold using inertial navigation (Leonard, Randy, Jonathan)
- AUTO_VELZ_MIN, AUTO_VELZ_MAX parameters control the max climb/descent rate for the autopilot (cm/s)
- PILOT_VELZ_MAX controls max climb/descent rate for the pilot (in cm/s)
- Landing improvements (Leonard/Randy). Copter will descend to 10m or until an object is sensed with the sonar. Then slows to 50cm/s descent (speed can be adjusted with LAND_SPEED parameter). (video).
- Surface tracking with sonar (Randy/Leonard). Copter will attempt to maintain current distance from objects in front of sonar regardless of altitude. Only used in alt-hold and loiter, not used for missions. Sonar can be enabled/disabled with CH7 switch. (video)
- Failsafe improvements (Randy/Craig/John Arne Birkeland) including bug fixes, additional check for PPM encoder failure and implementation of battery failsafe. Set-up instructions are here.
- Mediatek gps driver accuracy improvements and use of SBAS [Craig]. Instructions on upgrading your mediatek to firmware 1.9 are here.
- Traditional Heli improvements (Rob) including (a) bringing heli code back into the fold, (b) enabled rate controller (previously only used angle controllers). (c) fix to rotor speed controllers - now operates by switching off channel 8. (d) allow wider collective pitch range in acro and alt hold modes vs stabilize mode (e) bug fix to allow collective pitch to use the entire range of servos
- Acro trainer (Leonard). Copter will return to be generally upright if you release the sticks in acro mode.
- ACRO_TRAINER : set to 1 to enable the auto-bring-upright feature
- ACRO_BAL_ROLL, ACRO_BAL_PITCH : controls rate at which roll returns to level
- Camera control improvements (Randy/Sandro Benigno): (a) AP_Relay enabled for APM2 (b) Trigger camera with CH7 or DO_DIGICAM_CONTROL command (c) Allow pilot override of yaw during missions and fixed CONDITIONAL_YAW command.
- PPM sum support for transmitters with as few as 5 channels (Randy/Tridge/John Arne Birkeland).
- Performance and memory useage improvements (Tridge).
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.
Special thanks to our testing team lead Marco and the dedicated bunch on the 2.8.1 release thread who put their copters at risk while testing the pre-release version. Some of their videos are here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Please feel free to report issues you find in the discussion below and/or add them to the issues list.
Replies
If i can suggest that genius guy who make new web page change the WRONG picture of Y6 setup
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/arducopter/arducopter-setup/connec...
and make the right one as here
http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/wiki/APM2_Motor_order
this stupidity cost me 3 carbon props and one 60$ motor(wires from base of stator pulled out),bent leg too...
Post Blog Rejected: RC Helicopter Kills Toddler in Malaysia
Hi John,
It is the mission of DIY Drones to only promote the positive side of hobby drones so, unfortunately, your blog post will not be approved. This unfortunate incident has already received sufficient exposure on other web sites.
Regards,
TCIII Admin
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2013/3/23/nation/1288042...
Thomas sorry but I think you miss the point here. Firstly this happened yesterday about 30min drive from where I live so how can it be so fast it is now everywhere else on the other web sites? Stuff that happens in Malaysia just doesn't travel out that fast mate!
Its nice to post the positive side of DIY RC models but people also need to be made aware of the possible dangers of them as well. May be if you post this on DIY Drones it could help prevent a similar type of incident which was the reason I posted it.
Now how are you going to feel if someone else child get killed and it might have been avoided if you when and posted this article?
Just had two incidents of power fade, spiral down and crash, can anyone shed some light on what happened? Battery was fresh, voltage fine - have telemetry on my Tx. Was in stable loiter first and suddenly things went pear-shaped. Tried again and it did it again. APM2 on X525 quad with 20-22L motors and 30A Super Simple ESC's.
Edit: thought I had a tlog but not, will try get the log from the APM.
RTH tuning question.
I have RTH tuned fairly well but I get a slight wobble on the descent at the end. What is the main gain parameter for RTH? Or do just have the basic rate gains slightly too high?
.
Hi guys,
I need some help please.
My Quad is flying well, except for one thing. The trottle is way too jumpy. one click up and it rises, lower by one click and it falls. This makes for a very uneven flight.
What parameters do I need to tune?
regards
Andreas
I decided to test how increase of LOITER_I affects wind resistance
Both devices are excellent fly (rtl and auto too).
I usually use the following parameters:
both(lat/lon)
LOITER_D,0.4
LOITER_I,0.04
LOITER_IMAX,3000
LOITER_P,2.5
its are usually all right if there is no strong wind.
then i try to increase LOITER_I to 0.5 and more
at the 2-5 second after going in loiter mode quaid starts rapidly accelerated aside from the the wind. I made many attempts on both machines
Finally, I tried to lift higher and wait longer.
quaid began to pick up speed in the direction perpendicular to the wind, and the speeding up to 40 km/h overflew the arc radius 20m, then i turn it to alt_hold mode
both quaids had different settings one using simple mode, another without it
I'm setting up a new crab frame, similar to a TBS Discovery,
In the ArduCopter-2.9.1 APM_Config.h file I set :
#define CONFIG_APM_HARDWARE APM_HARDWARE_APM2
#define FRAME_CONFIG QUAD_FRAME
#define FRAME_ORIENTATION V_FRAME
and in the AP_MotorsQuad.cpp file I set :
}else if( _frame_orientation == AP_MOTORS_V_FRAME ) {
// My V_FRAME
add_motor(AP_MOTORS_MOT_1, 54.7, AP_MOTORS_MATRIX_MOTOR_CCW, 1);
add_motor(AP_MOTORS_MOT_2, -137.7, AP_MOTORS_MATRIX_MOTOR_CCW, 3);
add_motor(AP_MOTORS_MOT_3, -54.7, AP_MOTORS_MATRIX_MOTOR_CW, 4);
add_motor(AP_MOTORS_MOT_4, 137.7, AP_MOTORS_MATRIX_MOTOR_CW, 2);
}
No errors on compile, just a few warnings about unused variables from other libraries.
After loading this into my APM 2.5, the Advanced Param List showed FRAME=1. I changed it to V in Standard Params.
When I go into ArduCopter Level, I only have a choice of + or X for the Frame Setup.
Where does the FRAME value get read from? Why didn't it get set correctly, did I miss a configuration step somewhere?
Will my FRAME=2 affect the Accelerometer Calibration when I calibrate it?
TIA,
Rick
Hi
Can someone look into my logs and tell me why my copter did a Runaway in Auto Mode.?
http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/strange-behaviour-in-auto-mode-3d...
When the Hexacopter passing approx 136m height, the fault occure.
Thx
Ludvig
2013-03-19 18-33 63.log
One of the primary reasons I chose to go down the Arducopter path was for Return to Launch. There are so many ways a flight can go wrong, you could lose your orientation, get blown off course, have an OSD mishap - whatever, but it pays to have some insurance just in case something goes wrong.
So, I'm still in the process of running my quad through a proper shakedown, and one of those tick marks I had to check off was to get a sense for what my operational range is with 2.4ghz for control and 5.8ghz for video. Mostly - I was curious to see how well my video link would do with just the Fatshark Attitude's built in receiver.
For what it's worth - with a pair of home made cloverleafs - they were solid...as a matter of fact, the radio link gave out before the video did...
Which brings me to the brown pants moment. I hit the edge of my operational test...between the cold and the flight time in the air, I didn't want to push more than 3 min out and 3 min back...Radio failsafe kicks in and RETL is activated - no problem...
All of a sudden, I start hearing a rapid beep coming from my transmitter - low voltage cutoff! At that exact moment, I notice autopilot start pegging the throttle and the quad going into a wobble of death (or so I thought). I start frantically going through my emergency checklist.
* spotter's instructed to keep eyes on video link in case she goes down
* telemetry's going so I have GPS coords in case it comes to that
* grab a few landmarks
Then I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer...I pulled the goggles off and ran over to the car for the spare battery. I run 8 NIMH's which usually give me decent cold weather performance, and these were a fresh set, but I guess even in 32 degree weather that was too much for them.
But man - trying to swap out little batteries with numb fingers is not an easy task! Anyway - between me and my spotter, we both manage to get the batteries pulled and replaced, then I have to plug that f'n 3 pin header into the transmitter - again with frozen fingers.
Just as I got it plugged in, and turned the radio on - we looked up and bam - there she was hovering 80m over our heads :) I take back control and glide her gently for a nice landing.
Disaster averted ! whooooohoooo!!!
Best part - is you get a front row seat to the fun :D (ps OSD's prelease, needs some tweaking - ignore some of the weird numbers)
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