ArduCopter 2.9 / 2.9.1 released

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.

1) reduce default INS_MPU6K_FILTER to 20hz
2) reduce InertialNav Z-axis time constant to 5 (was 7)
3) increased max InertialNav accel correction to 3 m/s (was 1m/s)
4) bug fix for alt_hold being passed as int16_t to get_throttle_althold_with_slew
5) bug fix for throttle after acro flip (was being kept at min throttle if pilot switched out of ACRO mode while inverted)
6) reduce yaw_rate P default to 0.20 (was 0.25)
7) prevent cli from being entered more than 20seconds after reboot

If you've already uploaded 2.9.1b from the zip over the past few days, only #7 has been added. I've never heard of any body hitting this issue with an APM2 but it happened to a tester of the VRBrain.

Hi Guys,

This might be a little off topic, but I thought I post it anyway.

After changing motors on my F450 to T-Motor 2216 I finally have the copter sorted when it comes to vibration.

Camping on the farm the past Easter weekend provided the perfect opportunity to try an "auto mission".

After some smaller successful missions we tried a almost 2 KM flight over the "Hohenfels" mountain right next to the campsite.

Mission is +- 1.9KM long and flown at a altitude of 200m above ground level to avoid a crash into the mountain that is +- 50m lower. Nr. of way points totals 9 with a decent in two stages on the return leg. One to 150m and the second to 30m.

My Setup is:

F450 Hobbyking clone.

APM 2.5 with 2.91 firmware.

18A Tower pro ESC's.

T-Motor 2216 800kv.

APC 10X3.8 props.

433mhz telemetry.

3300mah 3 cell battery with the Go Pro just temporarily stuck on with double sided tape.

The "mission starts at +-16 seconds in and ends at 6.30 when reaching the loiter altitude.

Hope you enjoy.

https://vimeo.com/63302808

Replies

Xerravon April 5, 2013 at 11:41am

Hi,

I noticed a new "bug"?? in the MP. I have my video run through the MP, I tried to record, which has worked in the past, and all I get is the default hud screen. I will attach a small example file.

John

2013-04-05 13-37-03.avi
John Campen April 5, 2013 at 2:14am

I just set up my big quad with 2.9.1b and when I did the live compass calibration I get a completely different reading to my small test crash quad. On my small one I had "New offsets are -113-45 191" and on my big quad I just now got "91 -64 297". Yet both were in exactly the same spot on my balcony and both had 5 to 6 sats reading. Any ideas?
Daniel Chapelat April 5, 2013 at 12:30am

Bonjours a tous

Je viens de charger 2.9.1b par le planificateur de mission

tout semble ok,mais quand je me connecte apm 2.5, je reçois ce message ????

Je suis bloquè, pouvez- vous m'aider ? Merci
Joe April 4, 2013 at 11:40pm

Randy, was not sure where to post this, I was running Mission Planner 1.2.40 it offered an update to 1.2.41 in 1.2.41 none of the numbers in Quick panel change, all stuck at zero, uninstalled everything, repeated the process by loading 1.2.40 msi, and again accepted the upgrade to 1.2.41 same thing Quick panel all 0. Uninstalled again loaded 1.2.40 refused the update Quick panel works as expected.
Crashpilot1000 April 4, 2013 at 9:10pm

While thinking of failsafe options on my own project, i found something easy to prevent a complete flyaway. Some radios can not setup a FS in their RX (cheap), or the user is too crazy not to do it, and the RX just keeps sending the last valid RC Data instead of disconnecting or sending lowest throttle. In that case i implemented a 3rd stage of fs (1st RX, 2nd FC detects missing RC data). It is just a timeout, if thr/yaw/nick/roll (just a checksum) don't change for x seconds (30+ seconds?) i do a "Deadpilot" Failsafe (RTL,Autoland). This Deadpilot FS must be excluded from automatic tasks like Automission, Autolanding etc.

Perhaps it's an idea.

Cheers Kraut Rob

Developer

Randy April 4, 2013 at 6:01am

As some have noticed 2.9.1b is now in the mission planner and in the downloads area. I had to call it 2.9.1b-final because I basically called the release candidate 2.9.1b. In any case, the improvements over 2.9.1:

Warren Purnell April 4, 2013 at 2:36am

I read in post somewhere not long ago about 'copter control in Loiter changing in 2.9.2. Instead of the 5 metre push & shove zone it'll respond fluently to stick input.

My suggestion is to allow a small stick dead-zone to allow for slight out of trim states of the copters. My thinking is that any small trim input may/will cause a fly away. Reading stick input at the time of changing into Loiter mode may not be successful either if you are manually holding position (due to wind).

This may have already been considered, but this post hasn't cost me much in ink.
Emin Bu April 4, 2013 at 2:20am

ohoooo..2.9.1.1b is in the house..i meant in mission Planer
Moderator

Graham Dyer April 4, 2013 at 12:13am

What are the main differences between v2.9.1 and v2.9.1b now in the MP?
Andreas Breitenstein April 3, 2013 at 11:55pm

Hi Guys,

This might be a little off topic, but I thought I post it anyway.

After changing motors on my F450 to T-Motor 2216 I finally have the copter sorted when it comes to vibration.

Camping on the farm the past Easter weekend provided the perfect opportunity to try an "auto mission".

After some smaller successful missions we tried a almost 2 KM flight over the "Hohenfels" mountain right next to the campsite.

Mission is +- 1.9KM long and flown at a altitude of 200m above ground level to avoid a crash into the mountain that is +- 50m lower. Nr. of way points totals 9 with a decent in two stages on the return leg. One to 150m and the second to 30m.

My Setup is:

F450 Hobbyking clone.

APM 2.5 with 2.91 firmware.

18A Tower pro ESC's.

T-Motor 2216 800kv.

APC 10X3.8 props.

433mhz telemetry.

3300mah 3 cell battery with the Go Pro just temporarily stuck on with double sided tape.

The "mission starts at +-16 seconds in and ends at 6.30 when reaching the loiter altitude.

Hope you enjoy.

https://vimeo.com/63302808

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ArduCopter 2.9 / 2.9.1 released

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