ArduCopter 3.0.1 has been released and is now available in the Mission Planner, firmware.diydrones.com, GitHub and the new Downloads Area.
Warning #1: Compass calibration and reducing interference is far more important than with 2.9.1b
Warning #2: GPS glitches can cause sudden and aggressive position changes while in loiter mode. You may wish to reduce the Loiter PID P to 0.5 (from 1.0) to reduce aggressiveness (see image below of where this gain can be found in mission planner).
Warning #3: optical flow is not supported but will be back in the next release (AC-3.0.2 or AC-3.1.0).
Warning #4: loiter turns does not maintain altitude. This bug will be fixed in AC-3.0.2.
Warning #5: This release has only been lightly tested on Traditional Helicopters.
Improvements over 2.9.1b include:
- Inertial Navigation for Loiter and Auto meaning much more accurate control (Randy,Leonard,JonathanC)
- 3D navigation controller follows straight lines in all dimensions between waypoints (Leonard,Randy)
WPNAV_SPEED, WPNAV_SPEED_UP, WPNAV_SPEED_DN, WPNAV_ACCEL allows configuring speeds and acceleration during missions
- "compassmot" to compensate for interference on compass from the pdb, motors, ESCs and battery. (Randy,JonathanC) (Set-up video here)
- Safety improvements:
- simple Tin Can shaped Geo Fence
- pre-arm checks to ensure all calibration has been performed before arming (can be disabled by setting ARMING_CHECK to zero). (video description here)
- GPS failsafe - switches to LAND if GPS is lost for 5 seconds
- stability patch improvements to stop rapid climbs in very overpowered or overtuned copters
- Circle mode improvements including "panorama" when CIRCLE_RADIUS set to zero (Randy,Leonard)
- SONAR_GAIN parameter added to allow better tuning of sonar surface tracking
- CH8 auxiliary switch (same features as CH7)
- works on PX4 (some minor features still not available) (Tridge,PatH)
How to upgrade:
1. Make sure you are using Mission Planner 1.2.59 or newer (get it here)
2. Click on the MissionPlanner's Hardware, Install Firmware screen. The version numbers should appear as "ArduCopter-3.0.1", then click the appropriate frame icon and it should upgrade as per usual.
3. Reduce the Loiter and Alt Hold PIDs if you have modified them from the defaults. The modified PID values for the 3DR frame can be seen in the image below.
Note: Nav parameters have been combined with Loiter so do not be concerned if you can't find them.
4. Although not directly related to this release, if you purchased an APM prior to March of 2013, update your PPM encoder to the latest firmware (instructions here).
5. Try out the new version in stabilize mode first, then alt-hold, then loiter and finally RTL and Auto.
Numerous How-To videos are available:
Special Thanks to Marco, DaveC and the large number of testers on the pre-release thread who put their copters at risk during the extended testing period. Some of their videos can be found here, here, here, here, here and here. Thanks also to MichaelO for the MP changes required for this release.
All feedback welcome. Please put your questions, comments (good and bad!) below.
Replies
When switching from stab to loiter it can be quite violent and can sometimes topple the gimbal or show part of the frame in the shot. Its probably mostly because I have some vertical or horizontal speed at the time but at distance it can be hard to judge that. Is there anything in the settings that may soften the entry to loiter without reducing the loiter accuracy its self. If not might it be possible to have ‘soft entry’ to loiter?
Thanks
Vince
Hello...no one answer my question so here we go again: is it possible to make x8 with 2 flight controllers(lets say 2 APM2) one controlling top motors and another bottom ones..calibrate them together..also.is there a way to connect 2 apm to work together...that is the only way for redundancy i think,and it seems pretty simple once you sinchronise them together..its like two quad connected together on same frame i hope u get the picture..thanks for answer(randy,oliver,r.lefabre or others....)cmon,someone must had that idea before me and resource too...
I had volunteered to tune 3.0.1 for an organization. Originally had a loiter toilet bowling effect, but that has been tuned down with in-flight tuning, compassmot upon each upgrade and finally lots of tuning by on-board video view. Sharing the final PID, and also as a means to improve on it if you see anything odd. This all-in-one test includes loiter, power forward, yaw, RTL, fast descend and position hold descend in FPV view. Nothing fanciful, unbranded 450 specs with 3DR APM 2.5
CLI : reboot is bugged
It looks like the APM reboot, when finish, it start produces garbled messages like https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot/issues/434
I have been flying the latest firmware (3.0.1-rc2) and noticed the alitude gradually drops during turns when in ALT HOLD mode. This is flying with a fully charged battery...
Any news on V3.0.2 that will hold altitude during loiter turns. That’s something I need for AP work.
Here the "almost complete" flight test of VR Brain (ArduCopter V3.0.3 VRB version) on "Marcopter HV1 Heavy Hexa", happy watching:
Hi everybody ..
Yesterday I upgrade to 3.1 from 2.9b. in hope the I could get the "DO_SERVO" to work . I can manually control the servo with R/C channel 7,But still no luck in auto mission
Any chance Randy could do a video or screen shots of MP and is missions WP he used in the ball dropping
Sparkfun competition video ?
I am working on a project that will land place an object then take off again , so any help I would be grateful
cheers everyone
I've spent a bit of time reworking the dataflash and tlog wiki pages. I've also added a "Diagnosing problems using Logs" page that attempts to go through how to spot 5 of the most common problems that people have.
Basically trying to improve our documentation about how to use the dataflash logs and tlogs so people can make better use of them. All comments/corrections/requests for additions welcome.
With all the various people having problems with vibrations on the z-axis, why not have a switch to basically disable it.
Why try and guess the current position using relative changes reported by the z accelerometer when one can use absolute values that are reasonably accurate such as gps or sonar. Sure they are not exact and can be off by a meter or two, but it would appear that the z accel can go really wrong and make your copter take off or at best be more than 2m wrong in height.
How is using z accel a better thing ?
-
34
-
35
-
36
-
37
-
38
of 42 Next