Today I did some tests with Auto mode on my hexacopter flying 2.5.3. I did a total of three attempts with increasing waypoint speeds. Below you will see a short description of each attempt with screenshot. The area covered by the waypoints is roughly 10 acres. I've indicated wind speeds for each attempt. However, the waypoint navigation was done at altitudes between 390 to 399 feet. I have no idea how fast the wind speeds were at that altitude.
The first attempt was done at 11:15am. The estimated wind speed at the time was around 5mph. The waypoint speed was set to "1.5". The copter successfully flew the waypoints but was very slow to move from point to point. It did a pretty good job of staying on the path but did veer off a little. Not bad however.
The second attempt was done at 3:00pm. The wind speed had increased slightly to around 8mph. Since the copter flew to waypoints too slowly on the first try, I increased the waypoint speed to "2.5". The copter successfully flew the waypoints but was a little slow from point to point. But better than the first try for speed. You will notice in the screenshot below that it oscillated on and off the flight path. I think because of a cross wind. Is this normal behavior or do I need to tweak my PID settings more?
The third attempt was done around 4:00pm. The wind speed had increased a little more to around 9-10mph. I increased the waypoint speed to "3". Unfortunately my 8400mah battery was depleted so I decided to use my 6000mah battery. It's significantly lighter in weight. I probably should not have done that since it introduced another variable. This try was unsuccessful. On the first waypoint the copter circled 3 times hunting for the waypoint and then flew way off path. The end result was a minor crash.
My questions to you all are as follows.
1. Is it normal for a copter to oscillate back and forth (second screenshot) on the flight path or is that a PID setting issue?
2. How much wind can you do successful autonomous flight in?
3. Do you have any speculation about what factored into the unsuccessful third attempt?
Replies
I reviewed the logs and I see that on the last flight when it failed at the first waypoint, the magfield was varying by 400. On the other two flights it would vary only by around 60. Is that just because it was circling and the motors were throttling up and down??