Developer

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).

3690987999?profile=original

2. Add vibration dampening foam between your frame and the APM.  Some suggested materials: DuBrogelhk foam.

3690988058?profile=original

 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

3690988113?profile=original

 

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.

 

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Replies

  • Hi,

    If anyone is looking for Optical Flow sensors I found a few people selling them on ebay.  they look almost identical to the ones 3dr sells but are blue in color (the page shows, and says they are  green color but what came is blue. they have

    3drobotics.com printed on the board but I doubt they are made by 3dr. I dont know if there any good or not. the lens assembly is different, I would say the real 3dr (purple one) has a better lens on it, I only say that because I think the lens on the purple one has coated optics, I cant tell if the blue board does or not.

    I will attach some pic's

    3692768662?profile=original3692768705?profile=original

  • anyone please help me

    2013-07-08 11-23 7.zip

    https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3692767837?profile=original
  • Hi,

    I have a test quad, it is on a dji frame 450 with dji motors and esc's 30a. I had a px4 on it and I noticed the motors were getting hot, very hot. I put an apm25 on it and this does not happen, the motors stay, not cool but not much above air temp.

    I put the px4 back on it and flew for about 3 or 4 min's and again the motors are very hot again.

    anyone know what the problem may be?

    John

  • Randy,

    Would it be possible for you to take a look at my friends hexacopter log. His copter flew away over the ocean out of site, then somehow decided to come back and crash next to him. He posted the question here: http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/hexacopter-takes-off-on-its-own-a...

    but never got an answer.

    Thank you!

  • hI,

    I am having a small problem I cannot seem to correct. I am using the 3.0 beta ver FW

    In loiter mode I am having smll vibrations, or wobbles, kind of shakiness. Maybe  an 1/8' of an inch oscillations. when I switch to althold it flys very smooth, like its sitting on a table but as soon as I switch to loiter it  jitters. this started after rc6 but I also changed the HK foam with dubro foam, I changed back to hk foam and sti see the problem so I went back to dubro.

    also in loiter my copters (I have 3 with apm25's) they kind of walk around a couple feet. usually back and forth usually 1 or 2 feet. this started I think after 3.0rc3

    I have tried tuning loiter rate and speed but it still happens. 

    I have 2 logs, one with dubro foam and the other using HK foam (IMU enabled), seems like dubro wins but I dont think vibrations are the problem.

    thanks for any help,

    John

    hk_foam_test_2013-06-18 22-32 1.log

    DUBRO_2013-06-19 18-05 2.log

    https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3692749980?profile=original
  • My Tricopter altitude hold is no longer working. In altitude hold I can add full throttle and the copter descends to the ground. I can cut the throttle off, and it still descends to the ground at the same slow rate. Loiter is the same. Stabilize mode works normally.
    It worked fine yesterday. I did have a crash caused by a folding arm. I broke a wooden arm and had to replace all the props, but otherwise the damage was minor. I can't image what I could have damaged to cause such a strange behavior. The Baro sensor couldn't have been damged in a crash, it is protected be foam inside a case.
    Has anyone seen something like this? 

  • Unfortunately I managed to change enough settings enough to make the auto landing rather shaky, the copter will loose altitude fast then correct going up etc, while before it was rather nice ie slow and smooth.

     Any idea of which settings would be the usual settings?

     Thanks a lot

  • Hi,

    I had a small crash today and I am not sure what happened. I looked at the tlog and am still not sure.  What seemed to happen is I was flying in simple mode via ch7 switch and, simple mode seemed to stop working, I lost which way was which.

    the log is attached, if anyone can see what the problem was, please let me know. it happened at about 70% of the file.

    thanks,

    John

    crash_70p_2013-06-16 14-06-50.tlog

  • First post so be gentle ;)

    I've been flying with v2.9 for a while now and after reading the thread here on the progress that has been made in v3.0 I decided to take the plunge and install rc5.

    All good so far, I've followed the guides and watched Randy's YouTube videos regarding the new arming checks.  Performed compass setup and compassmot but I have one question on GPS.

    Previously when I ran the GPS test in CLI I got the raw data. Now it appears to be different, it runs some pre-flight checks and then I get a load of characters running across the screen. Is this as expected?  My GPS uses a Ublox chipset but it's not a 3DR one or one of the other common types

  • Hi,

    I have a very strange problem. when flying everything seems perfect except. when the copter is in althold, (or loiter) facing north in simple mode via ch7 option and I roll so the east side dips low, it  dramatically looses altitude but only when I push the roll stick east (east dips low in X config)

    If I yaw the copter so it is facing east, then I can hit the yaw in any direction and no loss in alt. if I yaw so the copter is facing south, now it looses alt when rolling west (west side dips)

    seems really strange to me. I will attach the log

    thanks for any help

    John

    2013-06-14 15-59-37.tlog

    https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3692745155?profile=original
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