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
GPSGLICH_RADIUS refers at max deviation in 1/5 seconds interval? (5hz GPS refresh)
Dear Devs!
I downloaded the 3.1rc5 hex file and made an autotune test with my long endurance hexa (link 1, link 2). Stab P is now at 9.0 and it is pretty responsive. Before It was at 4.5. Wind was quite heavy so I will try again the next days. WIll this have an effect on endurance? I'll make some tests.
This is an important feature! Thanks for all your efforts!
There are two minor things I have to double check. First, the hexa is relatively "twitchy" in loiter. This was "introduced" when switching from rc2 to rc3. Not problematic but a little strange. Second, battery voltage fail save is not working (no RTL at 14V). Any ideas?
Thanks,
Thorsten
I've been doing a lot of with 3.0.1 without any problems except one annoying thing that has started to come up more and more recently. I'm including a log of my last flight with the problem. The problem starts when I take off which is always in stablize mode. It does these quick random burst which take it up a meter or more. Just half a second and it never looses control. At first I thought it was a main power connection problem to the ESCs but I don't find any problem there. I'm using the APM PM. I'm using APM2.5 and 3.0.1 on a medium sized quad. If I switch to altitude hold the problem seems to go away or maybe it's masking it. I've looked at the log in regards to current and see some jumps but am not sure what I'm looking for. I doubt this can be a problem in the code but can someone give me a clue as to what to look for to see where the problem is coming from.
I think the problem shows up around 18% and 22% in the tlog.
And one other thing that I would like to fix is when I get an auto switch to RTL because of fail-safe, it points to home before ascending. This usually results in a dramatic jerk and then usually the signal comes back and it goes back into prior mode which is usually alt-hold. I know there is a setting to not have it turn home but I do need it to turn home since I'm using for FPV but can it turn AFTER it ascends? An ascend would be a much calmer way to indicate an RTL.
Can the yaw to home at least be slowed down or would that effect other auto modes?
Thanks everyone and especially the developers. I almost never to post here because of your excellent work because it mostly just works without any problems! 3.0.1 is very stable for me.
2013-10-23 07-34 68.kmz
2013-10-23 06-44-10.tlog
We've made ArduCopter 3.1-rc5 available through the mission planner's Beta Firmwares link (or it should appear there in 30min or so after this post). The source code can be found here. Improvements over 3.1-rc4 include:
1) Pixhawk USB reliability improvements
2) AutoTune changes:
a) enabled by default (sorry, it was meant to be enabled in -rc4)
b) status output to GCS (messages will appear on the HUD)
c) use 2 pos switch only
3) ch7/ch8 LAND
4) Tricopter stability patch improvements [thanks to texlan]
5) safety improvements:
a) slower speed up of motors after arming
b) pre-arm check that copter is moving less than 50cm/s if arming in Loiter or fence enabled
6) bug fix to loading missions while copter is armed.
All feedback welcome. I think this version is quite close to what will become the official AC3.1 release.
next issue... we are missing the camera trigger over specified distance...like in the arduplane..
or am I missing something?
this is a must have feature for any sort of mapping.
steve
A quick thanks to the dev team!
Here is my onboard video of 3.1rc3 Autotune, followed up by exercises with the new gains. The first 5min shows my unedited Autotune flight, followed by a comparison to my manual gains @5:09. After that, the test flight ensues. Most of the test flight is in stab and alt, but I did some basic acro @8:40:
I like to think I have half way decent manual tuning skills, but I preferred the gains Autotune picked out for me. Stab and Alt felt a bit more sure footed. So I am pretty confident all the auto stuff will work as good or better than it did (it was spot on, but a bit overactive). If anything bad comes up I'll be sure to holler. Acro was way more locked in. It felt a lot like my harakiri mini-h; the extra confidence that gave is inspiring me to take more risks with my APM450. I have no doubt this rig will be attempting a lot more gaps in the future. ;)
Hi All,
Do you think it is a good idea to tune Rate_P, Rate_I and Rate_D for pitch and roll axis in Alt-Hold than Stabilize mode?
Also, I find that it can also be better than in Loiter mode. Any suggestions on why to only tune it in Stabilize?
Hi all, I have two questions...
1) with the "hit Rad" set to "0" the copter does a chicken dance trying to find it's spot on about half the points... it's quite dangerous looking. I set the hit rad up to 30 and all is good. I don't want to type in 30 to every line of my mission.. is there somewhere I can set this an forge it?
2) the copter seems to want to auto land at the last waypoint. I did not instruct it to do so and I don't recall this happening on previous firmwares... Did something change?
Thanks and great work on APM both fixed wing and MR guys.
Steve
So an update on the oscillations i had... perhaps it may help someone else as well..
i tried testing everything... and the oscillations where still there...
eventually after testing each motor.. i found one motor that had a slightly different sound ONLY during mid throttle and randomly... whenever this happened the quad used to wobble and oscillate.. but in FFF it was fine since it was above this "hover throttle point"... the MOT logs didnt show any particular corrective action by the APM when the quad was oscillating BUT the APM was doing alot to keep the quad stable...
anyways i swapped the motor out.. balanced it.. and all is well again..
the only problem i am having is in loiter the quad wants to rise...
I have set throttle mid to the value of thrOut but what else can i tune to keep the alt in place?
whether i put throttle mid higher or lower the quad still rises..
I have attached logs perhaps someone can give me some suggestions?
(the logs have several few seconds flights where i was tuning different values... the first and second of the "flights" in the logs are just a normal hover and the first test with loiter.. thereafter i was tuning things alt hold, accel_P,thro_accel to get a smoother alt hold.. but i still have that steady climb upwards..
2013-10-22 18-31 234.zip
Guys,
I didn't want to further clutter this thread, so I opened another thread for my problem. I'd appreciate if you have a look and adivse: http://www.diydrones.com/forum/topics/apm-3-1-rc4-yaw-pid-tuning
Thanks,
Michael
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