Developer

Copter-3.3 beta testing

Warning #1: an issue has been found with Tower's Pause button which can cause the vehicle to fly to an old position if the vehicle has not sent a position update to Tower in some time.

Warning #2: Copter-3.3.2 fixes a bug found in Copter-3.3.1's desired climb rate initialisation which could lead to a sudden momentary drop when switching from Stabilize or Acro to AltHold, Loiter or PosHold.

Warning #3: Copter-3.3.2 fixes an issue found in Copter-3.3.1 which could lead to hard landings in RTL or AUTO if the WPNAV_SPEED_DN was set too high (i.e. >400 or 4m/s) and/or the WPNAV_ACCEL_Z was set too low (i.e. <100 or 1m/s/s).

Warning #4: a bug was found in Copter-3.3 which could cause a sudden crash if you abort a Take-off initiated from a ground station.  Video description is here.  The bug is fixed in Copter-3.3.1 so we recommend upgrading.

Note #1: AC3.3-rc8 corrected a long standing bug in the HDOP reporting.  HDOP values will appear about 40% lower than previously but this does not actually mean the GPS position is better than before.
Note #2: if upgrading from AC3.2.1 the vehicle's accelerometer calibration needs to be done again.
Note #3: set SERIAL2_PROTOCOL to "3" and reboot the board to enable FrSky telemetry like in previous versions.
Note #4: the wiki will be updated over the next few weeks to explain how to use the new features

Copter-3.3.1 is available through the mission planner.  The full list of changes vs AC3.2.1 can be see in the ReleaseNotes and below are the most recent changes since AC3.3.

Sadly this version (and all future versions) will not run on the APM2.x boards due to CPU speed, flash and RAM restrictions.

Changes from 3.3:

1) Bug fix to prevent potential crash if Follow-Me is used after an aborted takeoff

2) compiler upgraded to 4.9.3 (runs slightly faster than 4.7.2 which was used previously)

Changes from 3.3-rc11:

1) EKF recovers from pre-arm "Compass variance" failure if compasses are consistent

Changes from 3.3-rc10:

1) PreArm "Need 3D Fix" message replaced with detailed reason from EKF

Changes from 3.3-rc9
1) EKF improvements:
    a) simpler optical flow takeoff check
2) Bug Fixes/Minor enhancements:
    a) fix INS3_USE parameter eeprom location
    b) fix SToRM32 serial protocol driver to work with recent versions
    c) increase motor pwm->thrust conversion (aka MOT_THST_EXPO) to 0.65 (was 0.50)
    d) Firmware version sent to GCS in AUTOPILOT_VERSION message
3) Safety:
    a) pre-arm check of compass variance if arming in Loiter, PosHold, Guided
    b) always check GPS before arming in Loiter (previously could be disabled if ARMING_CHECK=0)
    c) sanity check locations received from GCS for follow-me, do-set-home, do-set-ROI
    d) fix optical flow failsafe (was not always triggering LAND when optical flow failed)
    e) failsafe RTL vs LAND decision based on hardcoded 5m from home check (previously used WPNAV_RADIUS parameter)

Thanks for your testing!

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • Simple test flight with autotune on Y6B - tuned parameters are not usable - reverted to manually tuned.

    What is changed by Autotune_aggr and Autotune_Axes? What are recommended values?

    3701981955?profile=original

    2015-04-14 10-23-03.zip

    • Developer

      Hi Hubertus,

      In exactly what way is it un usable?

      Autotune_aggr is a parameter that sort of defines the noise rejection of the autotune. It should have been 0.1. Autotune_Axes is a bit mask to define what axis will be tuned. 1 is Roll, 2 is Pitch, 4 is Yaw, 3 is Roll and Ptich ect ect.

      You have the same a similar problem I am seeing with others (but not enough to stop you getting what looks like a reasonable tune) and I hope the next release will fix this.

      • Leonardt,

        tried again flying with the autotune parameters - it´s flyable, but there is some overshoot and oscillations in roll. Rate P/I pitch is out of range according to MP - is this a problem? Response in pitch axis is quite good, so perhaps i should leave it to the tuned params.

        • Developer

          Hi Hubertus,

          Oscillations is definitely bad. But it is strange as tuned pids seem to be more conservative than your original pids.

          If you could try the autotune in the next release for me I would really appreciate it!!

          Thanks

  • Distributor

    wow - thank you very much to all the developers!

  • Thanks Randy. My 4 Year old Daughter is into everything. Have had to lapse a little with playing the devs builds in the park. Have a pix and am looking on adding a second GPS. Maybe the Neo 7 as a redundant backup? Humm..

  • Loaded 3.3 today, previous 3.2.1  flies fine in PosHold but with 3.3 I got error (Flightmode err 16) and PosHold is not working

    Loaded 3.2.1 back and it is rock solid in Poshold.

    I did not change anything between the 2 versions

    Log from 3.3 attached 2015-04-13 19-18-15.log

    Log from 3.2.1 attached 2015-04-13 18-38-21.log

    2015-04-13 19-18-15.log

    2015-04-13 18-38-21.log

  • Loaded 3.3 today, previous 3.2.1 flies fine in PosHold but with 3.3 I got error (Flightmode err 16) and PosHold is not working
    Loaded 3.2.1 back and it is rock solid in Poshold.
    I did not change anything between the 2 versions
    Did this (Note #1: because of the accelerometer range change (see 6b below) this upgrade will require the vehicle's accelerometer calibration to be done again.)
    Log from 3.3 attached 2015-04-13 19-18-15.log
    Log from 3.2.1 attached 2015-04-13 18-38-21.log

    Logs zipped

    logs.zip

  • APM Planner won't calibrate accelerometers after 3.3

    I screwed up and started a discussion instead of a reply so copied to this discussion

    I am pretty sure this was caused by the 3.3 upgrade.  I have successfully calibrated the accelerometers many time recently and when I tried after 3.3 it times out and will not calibrate.  I hooked up my trusty Iris after several attempts on my 550 and the Iris responded as normal.  I then hooked up a spare pixhawk and uploaded 3.3, attempted a calibration with no results.  Neither unit will calibrate now even if I revert back to 3.2.1.  I took the 550 to School today and successfully calibrated 3.3 with a PC running Mission Planner.  I came home this afternoon and uploaded 3.3 to my Iris and it now has joined the other two in the calibration fail pile.  I am now out of tricks and could use some help.

    RB

This reply was deleted.

Activity

Neville Rodrigues liked Neville Rodrigues's profile
Jun 30
More…